Deep pockets carry the day

Money didn’t just talk in Tuesday’s election. It screamed.

The year’s biggest spenders -- and biggest winners -- were the oil and tobacco industries. In almost every contest, candidates and issues with the most money trumped the side with less, even if the losers raised bags full.

Although final numbers won’t be known until January, contributors spent a record sum on California campaigns in 2006, more than $600 million. The record was about $500 million, in 1998.

By comparison, the cost of this year’s federal campaigns is expected to be $2.6 billion, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics estimates. And Ed Bender, executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics in Helena, Mont., predicts that once the money is calculated sometime next year, all state campaigns nationwide will have cost about $2.4 billion.

“California cements its position as a state that is very different from any other,” Bender said Wednesday. “It has a lot of character, a lot of flair and a lot of money.”

The oil industry spent $95 million to beat back Proposition 87, which would have imposed a new extraction tax of up to $485 million a year. Proponents of the measure spent $57 million, of which $50 million came from Hollywood millionaire Stephen L. Bing. The result was the nation’s first $150-million ballot-measure campaign.

“The money spent is obnoxious. It is bad,” said Scott Macdonald, spokesman for the No on 87 campaign. “No one says $150 million spent on a proposition is money well spent. But our people spent the money because they were under attack.”

Proposition 86, which would have added a $2.60 tax to a pack of cigarettes, was the second-costliest initiative in 2006. In any other year, the $66.6 million that tobacco firms spent to defeat it would have been eye-popping.

“Pretty good investment,” said Jim Knox of the American Cancer Society of California, a champion of the tobacco tax. Backers raised $14 million. “This is their biggest market, and they were going to fight with everything they had.”

Other well-heeled interests prevailed too. Californians approved a record $37 billion in borrowing to reinforce levees, widen freeways, build classrooms and improve other public works. The campaigns for those measures, Propositions 1A through 1E, cost roughly $35 million, said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), who took a leading role by raising roughly $10 million for the effort.

Donors included Indian tribes, real estate interests and major construction companies, which probably will bid on the work to be funded by the bonds. Also giving substantially were unions representing building trades and public school employees. Almost no money was spent in opposition.

The bond campaign busted its original budget, Perata said. One reason was the heavy spending by other campaigns, including oil and tobacco interests. Their voracious demand for television airtime sapped supply, and escalated costs.

“We were buying TV time in a market that was stratospheric, one that we had not seen before,” Perata said, adding that competition for donors’ dollars this year was fierce.

The aspect of the campaign overseen by Perata’s political operation included $13 million in television commercials, tailored for each region of the state; $2.25 million in radio; and 6 million pieces of direct mail.

In candidate races, the biggest spenders also won, with few exceptions.

“Money buys your way into office,” said Ned Wigglesworth of California Common Cause, “ ... which turns representative democracy on its head.”

In the race for insurance commissioner, Republican businessman Steve Poizner outspent Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante dramatically -- and beat the Democrat in a landslide. Using $9 million of his own money, Poizner spent about $11 million, compared with Bustamante’s $1.5 million or so.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger raised and spent roughly $42 million this year. The precise amount his opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, spent in the general election won’t be known until January, although it probably won’t be much more than $10 million.

In the June primary campaign, Controller Steve Westly’s $43 million topped Angelides’ $28.1 million. Angelides’ patrons leveled the field by setting up independent campaigns on his behalf and spending $10.4 million to help him win the nomination.

Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos was Angelides’ biggest individual benefactor by far -- and thus one of the campaign’s losers. Altogether, Tsakopoulos and his family spent $12.48 million on state and local politics this year. Most went to Angelides.

In many instances, Tsakopoulos and other big donors gave to political party organizations rather than directly to candidates. There are no limits on donations to party organizations, but the state restricts the size of contributions to candidates.

In some instances, the source of the money given to the parties was controversial enough that some candidates might refuse direct contributions. Schwarzenegger, a cigar smoker, accepts modest donations from cigar manufacturers but takes no money from cigarette companies such as Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

However, tobacco companies gave more than $2 million to Republican Party organizations in 2006. Such payments financed mass mailings prominently featuring the Republican governor and his opposition to the tobacco tax initiatives.

In other instances, interest groups formed independent campaigns to promote or attack candidates. Such efforts cost more than $32 million this year, campaign reports show.

Southern California Indian tribes that own casinos joined Silicon Valley software giant Intuit to spend a combined $2 million in a failed effort to elect Republican Tony Strickland as state controller. Public employee unions and other tribes answered with $2.9 million on behalf of Democrat John Chiang.

The biggest wallet prevailed: Chiang bested Strickland.

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dan.morain@latimes.com