Washed It!

President Obama, challenged by Indian students Sunday to explain why the United States had not labeled Pakistan a terrorist state, defended his administration’s efforts to help the Pakistani government root out extremism and urged Indians to remember their own stake in promoting their longtime rival’s stability.

Obama’s call to India for a gradual rapprochement with Pakistan, made during a sometimes lively town hall-style meeting at St. Xavier’s College in the Indian city of Mumbai, is likely to be repeated at a speech Monday to the Parliament in New Delhi.

Despite the pointed exchange over Pakistan, Obama’s day with students included a session of impromptu dancing by the president and the first lady that offered personal images to balance the generally serious and carefully scripted elements in the Obamas’ first visit to this nation.

A day earlier, Obama met with survivors of the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai by Pakistani extremists, but he was careful to avoid mentioning Pakistan.

On the second day of a 10-day Asia trip, Obama was clearly ready for more direct engagement on the matter. “I must admit I was expecting it,” he said, eliciting laughter from the college audience assembled outdoors on a sunny afternoon.

Obama said the U.S. approach toward Pakistan on the issue of terrorism has been “to be honest and forthright … to say we are your friend, this is a problem and we will help you with it, but the problem has to be addressed.”

He said he was “absolutely convinced that the country that has the biggest stake in Pakistan’s success is India.”

“So my hope is, is that over time trust develops between the two countries,” he said, “that dialogue begins — perhaps on less controversial issues, building up to more controversial issues — and that over time there’s a recognition that India and Pakistan can live side by side in peace and that both countries can prosper.”

India was partitioned to create Pakistan at the time of independence from Britain in 1947, and the two neighbors have fought three major wars since.

Although Indian students also grilled him about his views on jihad and Afghanistan policy, as well as his take on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Obama kept at least a part of his message focused on the main aim of his second extended trip to Asia: opening up markets to create job opportunities for Americans.

Over the weekend, he spoke about the “enormous untapped potential” in trade, calling on India to lower barriers in everything from retail imports to telecommunications. On Sunday, he told students that Americans were frustrated with the U.S. economy and how the midterm election results had forced him to make “some midcourse corrections and adjustments.”

“So I want to make sure that we’re here because this will create jobs in the United States and it can create jobs in India,” Obama said. “But that means that we’ve got to negotiate this changing relationship.”

Some listeners were skeptical, aware that Obama and other Democrats often speak disapprovingly of U.S. companies that “ship jobs overseas.” India has long been a favored destination for American outsourcing of data processing, call centers and back office functions.

“It is offensive,” said Lopa Mullick, an owner of an events-management company who attended Obama’s session at St. Xavier’s College. “It hurts us…. You’re not looking at all the opportunities that India has created for the U.S., at the economic benefits both sides get.”

Still, the young entrepreneur said she came to listen to Obama because she believes he can “shift the focus” and that he may actually want to do so.

During an earlier visit with schoolchildren, Michelle Obama broke out into a lengthy dance that dominated TV and inspired local newspaper headlines such as “When Michelle Got Into the Groove.”

The president himself showed off his footwork as schoolchildren enticed him to join the first lady in a traditional Indian dance during a Diwali celebration. It inspired some low-key moves, though mostly unrelated to the elaborate steps everyone else was doing.

cparsons@latimes.com

don.lee@latimes.com

Parsons reported from Mumbai and Lee from Washington.
Obama fields tough questions from Indian students

In a number of key races around the country, aggressive and meticulously targeted spending by independent conservative groups appears to have helped produce dramatic results for Republicans.

Unlike Democrats, who relied heavily on financial assistance from unions and Democratic Party committees, Republican candidates got their boost from advertising, mailers and get-out-the-vote drives financed by more than a dozen newly formed conservative groups.

Those groups employed a two-pronged strategy: First, they poured much-needed cash into districts where Republican candidates lagged behind in fundraising. Second, they sent millions into what were once considered safe Democratic districts in an attempt to thin out Democrats’ resources.

The strategy appears to have been a success. In an election cycle where Democratic candidates and party committees had out-raised Republicans by about $168 million, outside conservative groups, armed with $187 million, were able to strategically and successfully leverage that money to produce results for the GOP.

In the 74 House and Senate seats that had switched party hands by early Wednesday morning, 57 were won by Republicans who held the advantage in spending by outside groups, according to an analysis by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

Republican Mark Kirk enjoyed the greatest advantage in non-party outside spending in his winning bid to represent Illinois in the Senate. Thanks to large and consistent ad buys by groups such as American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — big spenders that were formed this year by Karl Rove and other GOP strategists — Kirk held an $8-million advantage in outside money over his Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias.

In the House, Republican Mick Mulvaney topped the list of outsider support with his successful bid to replace 14-term incumbent and chair of the powerful House Budget Committee, John M. Spratt Jr.

In the final two weeks of the campaign, non-party groups opposing Spratt spent nearly $500,000 in his South Carolina district, compared with just $6,000 spent by groups in support, according to data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation

In southern Virginia, 14-term incumbent Rick Boucher was defeated after conservative groups waged a costly ad campaign that went unmatched by groups on the left.

On the Iron Range of Minnesota, 17-term incumbent James L. Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation Committee, was swept from office after a late October storm of conservative group advertising on Duluth television.

“We were able to go places where Democrats were comfortable and require them to start spending money,” said Carl Forti, political director at the Crossroads groups, citing Oberstar’s district and others. “For us, it was an effort to expand the field.”

Liberal groups did not spend a single dollar advertising in Oberstar’s district, according to the Public Citizen analysis. But the onslaught forced Oberstar to run the first negative ad of his career.

kim.geiger@latimes.com

Times staff writer Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.
Outside groups made the difference for some Republicans

In one declarative night, California on Tuesday confirmed its status as a political world unto itself, zigging determinedly Democratic while most of the rest of the country zagged Republican. Voters not only restored the governor’s office to Democratic hands, they may have given Democrats a sweep of statewide offices, though uncounted ballots could still shift one race.

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor’s race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

California Republicans had multiple reasons for head-shaking on Wednesday. For decades, the state party has squabbled over whether success would come more easily to candidates running as conservatives or those who presented a more moderate face to the state’s sizeable bloc of independent, centrist voters. This year they tried both. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina ran a firmly conservative race and Whitman took a more moderate road.

Holding their coastal strength, Democrats ran away with their big counties. Brown carried Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state’s voters, by 31 points, giving him almost 60% of his lead. Republican candidates, including Whitman, did better than Democrats in their traditional interior California strongholds. But the strong Republican counties tend to be heavier on acreage than voters.

On Tuesday each hit a double-digit dead end, as Fiorina lost to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Whitman came in a distant second to Brown.

Democratic successes in the midst of 2010’s national Republican renaissance marked a sharp turnabout from how the state behaved during the last major Republican year, in 1994. That year, as Republicans took back Congress, they won in California as well, picking up five of seven statewide offices, including the governorship, and adding legislative seats. This time, Democrats picked up a legislative seat despite Republican gains nationally, and were waiting for uncounted ballots to see whether they lost a congressional seat or two.

The difference between then and now rests on the changes in the California electorate. Those changes also explain the gulf that now exists between California and the nation. California in 1994 was more white and proportionately less Democratic than it is today, thus more similar to the country today. Nationally, non-whites made up only 22% of the Tuesday electorate; in California they made up 38%. Latinos nationally represented 8% of the national electorate, just shy of a third of their power in California. The California and national exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations, including television news networks and the Associated Press.

Tellingly, Latinos in California had a far more negative view of the GOP than other voters — almost 3 in 4 had an unfavorable impression, to 22% favorable. Among all California voters the view of Republicans was negative, but at a closer 61% negative and 32% positive. Latinos had a strongly positive view of Democrats, 58% to 37%, whereas all voters were closely split, 49% to 45%.

“The brand name is still a tremendous liability,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who runs a nonpartisan election-tracking publication. “People of color are just turned off by the Republican Party.”

Despite their efforts to appeal to Latinos, Whitman and Fiorina came under fire throughout the campaign for their views on illegal immigration. Fiorina supported Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law. Whitman, while opposing that measure, was pressed in her primary into talking about how she would be “tough as nails” toward illegal immigrants. The closing month of the campaign featured a controversy over Whitman’s firing of her illegal immigrant housekeeper; shortly before the election she said she favored the woman’s deportation.

Not surprisingly, Latino voters drawn to the polls because of the governor’s race went lopsidedly for Brown, 73% to 18%.

State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said the election results confirmed that party leaders and candidates needed to build stronger relationships with non-whites, and not just before an election.

“The reality is that Democrats have strong relationships with urban and immigration communities that Republicans have not had, and that must change,” he said. “It is not only a matter of politics; it is a matter of mathematics.”

But Nehring stressed that he was not advocating a change in Republican policy. “Republicans have stressed for decades that we support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration,” he said. “Despite saying that, that message has not resonated. It is not only a matter of how we talk about this issue, but how other people hear us.”

Views of the parties appeared strongly entrenched in California, however. Tellingly, the biggest vote-getter among Republicans was attorney general nominee Steve Cooley, who came into the race from a nonpartisan post as Los Angeles County’s district attorney and took pains Tuesday night to de-emphasize his party membership. Even with that, he was narrowly trailing Democrat Kamala Harris in a race so close it may not be decided for many days.

As election day dawned, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California by 2.3 million voters, a gap that has been growing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to pull significantly from Democratic-leaning groups, including independent voters and women, but Tuesday’s candidates were not able to replicate that success.

Brown, for example, drew 600,000 more votes than the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Phil Angelides. But Whitman drew 1.8 million fewer votes than Schwarzenegger had in 2006.

A persistent problem for Republicans in California, but an accelerant for them nationally, were views about Obama. Nationally he had a negative job-approval rating; in California, that flipped to a positive rating by 10 points. The results suggest that while Obama may not throw as large a shadow as he did with his record victory in California in 2008, he remains a formidable candidate in the state for 2012.

Asked whether Tuesday’s results suggested that Republicans would simply cede the state in 2012, Nehring demurred. “I think it is premature to make that determination,” he said.

But other Republicans suggested that their best chance for relevance in two years would be a continuation of the unsettled national environment that did not quite reach the California state line.

“You never say never,” said Hoffenblum. “Who would have predicted two years ago that Barack Obama and the Democrats would have crashed as quickly as they did? The temperature of the times is not normal.”

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
California went its own way

With Republicans expected to win control of the House in Tuesday’s election, President Obama scheduled a press conference for Wednesday in what was expected to amount to a mid-course correction to deal with the power shift on Capitol Hill.

Obama is expected to try to reach out to Republicans, who have campaigned against his economic stimulus plan, healthcare overhaul and other policies. But if the GOP gains seats in the House and Senate, as expected, heavy partisan conflict is anticipated, especially as the parties gear up for the 2012 reelection campaign.

“This election’s going to be a referendum on Obama’s policies,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Assn., said on MSNBC on Tuesday. “What is the president’s response going to be?”

Citing the GOP’s pledge to cut spending aggressively, Barbour added: “Hopefully, the president is going to be willing to come forward and say, ‘I recognize we have to do that; let’s work together.’ ”

But Democrats question Republicans’ sincerity, noting Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky recently said that his top priority was to make “Obama … a one-term president.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, offered his own advice to the White House. “We’ve got to use the president more. He’s a great communicator,” he told MSNBC. “If tonight turns out to be better than expected for Democrats, it’s because the president got energized in the last month.”

If Republicans win control of the House, Obama will still be setting the agenda, Barbour said. “The Republicans are not going to be running the government, but they will have much more of a say than we’ve had for these two years,” he said on MSNBC.

But signaling the conflict that awaits the administration and the new Congress, Barbour said Republicans were going to try to repeal the healthcare reform bill. “If they can’t repeal it, they’re going to try to change it so that you wouldn’t recognize it,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “They’re going to be faithful to what the voters vote for tonight.”

Fellow Republican Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor, however, told CNBC: “When it’s all said and done, you’re not going to be able to repeal healthcare because President Obama is not going to sign it, and they don’t have enough votes to override a veto. So why push a cart uphill when you know it’s not going to be able to get to the top?”

richard.simon@latimes.com
Obama’s response: President plans post-election press conference

With redistricting on every politician’s mind, voters will choose some three dozen governors on Tuesday, and Republicans are expected to win the lion’s share of those races, according to the latest polls.

Democrats have a slight edge over Republicans going into the midterm elections, but GOP officials have said they expect to pick up at least six governors’ chairs to bring their total to more than 30. The Republican count could go higher since the latest polls have several races too close to call, including in the pivotal state of Florida.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink holds a statistically insignificant 1-point lead over former healthcare executive Rick Scott. But the key will be the 9% of the electorate still undecided, said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of polling.

Sink, the Democrat, was further ahead in previous polls, so the current survey shows Scott, the Republican, with some momentum. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 points.

The final Ohio Poll is more optimistic for the GOP, showing Republicans capturing both the governor’s race and the Senate seat. Top Democrats, including President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Clinton, campaigned in Ohio throughout the weekend, hoping to reverse those predictions.

According to the poll, former Republican Congressman John Kasich has 52% of the vote while Gov. Ted Strickland is at 47.7%. On the Senate side, former Congressman Rob Portman was at 60% to Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s 39.2%.

The Ohio Poll is conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2%.

The gubernatorial races are important because congressional and local legislative districts will be redrawn this year after the census. Traditionally, the party in power has more sway in determining the composition of the districts for the next decade.

In addition, Ohio and Florida are considered pivotal to President Obama’s reelection chances in 2012.

Obama moved both Ohio and Florida into the Democratic column in 2008 after former President George Bush carried them in 2004.

michael.muskal@latimes.com
twitter.com/LATimesmuskal
Polls give GOP the edge in governors’ races

Democrats fought Republicans on Saturday in a campaign battle that stretched coast to coast, pushing against an epic tide of anger, frustration and economic anxiety that could sweep the GOP to control of one and possibly both houses of Congress.

Driving deep into once-solid Democratic territory, Republicans spent the last weekend of the midterm election campaign targeting House seats in blue-state bastions such as California, New York and Massachusetts. Democrats poured tens of millions of dollars into a last-ditch effort to save dozens of threatened incumbents, writing off others whose chances appeared beyond hope.

With spending near the $4-billion mark, a record for a midterm contest, there was little escaping the last blast of campaigning. Candidates and others with a stake in Tuesday’s outcome — including, most prominently, President Obama — staged rallies while hundreds of thousands of volunteers knocked on doors and manned phone banks, urging supporters to the polls.

In Philadelphia, the first stop on a final campaign swing, Obama said all the progress of the last two years could be rolled back if Republicans seize control of Congress.

“We can’t move backwards now. We’ve got to keep moving forward,” Obama told an audience of Democratic volunteers at Temple University. “And that’s all going to be up to you. So I want everybody to get out there, knock on doors, make phone calls, volunteer, talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors.”

Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the likely House speaker if Republicans take over, used the party’s weekly radio address to jab at the president and Democrats and to promise a change from the last time Republicans ran Congress. He promised smaller government and greater accountability.

“We’ve tried it President Obama’s way,” Boehner said. “We’ve tried it Washington’s way. It hasn’t worked.”

All the while, a torrent of TV and radio advertising provided a loud and surly campaign soundtrack, blaring virtually around the clock. In some states, every last minute of TV ad time was sold out.

All 435 U.S. House seats are up on Tuesday. Republicans need a gain of 39 to win control of the House, which they lost in 2006. Despite a public show of optimism, based on healthy Democratic turnout in some early voting, party strategists privately echoed Republicans who have suggested a change in power was highly likely. The only question, both sides agreed, was the magnitude of Republican gains and whether it approaches — or surpasses — the 52-seat GOP landslide in 1994, the last time Democrats controlled Congress and the White House.

Voters will cast ballots for 37 of 100 U.S. Senate seats. Democrats were confident they would keep the majority, albeit narrowly, and Republican strategists conceded the likelihood. The GOP needs to convert 10 seats to take over and many handicappers predicted the party would fall short, as contests in Connecticut and West Virginia seemed to tip the Democrats’ way and as Sens. Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington appeared to shore up support.

The last time either party gained at least 10 Senate and 40 House seats in a single election was in 1958.

Also on the ballot Tuesday are the governorships of 37 states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas. Republicans seem poised to gain about a half-dozen governor’s seats and take control of several statehouses, which could have significant implications for races in 2012 and beyond, as legislators redraw the boundaries used to elect members of Congress.

Midterm contests are typically a referendum on the president and almost always cost his party congressional seats. This year appears no different. If anything, the achievements of Obama and congressional Democrats — passing massive economic stimulus and healthcare bills, rescuing the auto industry, cracking down on Wall Street — sharpened the opposition, giving birth to the “tea party” movement that promised to usher a number of insurgents into Congress.

Compounding problems for the president and his party, this year’s races were run in a brutal economic climate, following the worst downturn since the Great Depression. At nearly 10%, the jobless rate is the second highest it has been for a midterm election in the last 50 years.

“If unemployment was 7.4%, or even 8.1%, but dropping, and people clearly perceived that things were getting better, then Democrats would take some losses,” said Tim Hibbitts, an independent pollster in Oregon. “But not the potential catastrophe they’re facing.”

A look at the national map showed the party’s dire circumstances.

Of 100 or so House seats that looked at least marginally competitive, Democrats were on the defensive in all but a handful. Some of the party’s most durable incumbents — including committee chairmen Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Ike Skelton of Missouri and John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina — were in trouble or, at the least, facing their toughest reelection fight in years.

Seats that would normally be out of Republican reach, in districts Obama easily carried two years ago, were in the toss-up category or leaning Republican, leading some independent analysts to forecast GOP gains of as many as 70 seats or more.

A swing of even 60 seats would be the largest midterm shift since 1938.

Both parties campaign to the finish line

As candidates count down the hours to election day, many campaigns are bracing for the possibility that it may take weeks before the final results are known. And that’s before the lawyers have their say.

In several states that host what may prove to be decisive contests for the House and Senate, elections officials say a definitive vote count may not be known until well after Nov. 2.

In Washington, for instance, all but 2% of ballots are expected to be cast by mail. With polls showing Sen. Patty Murray locked in a tight race with Republican Dino Rossi, it may be those votes arriving after election day that tip the balance.

“We do have a sense for the dramatic here in Washington,” said Secretary of State Sam Reed.

His office is also preparing for the possibility of a recount, which would automatically occur if the two leading candidates are separated by a margin within 0.5%. Recount laws vary by state, and in several, losing candidates have to pick up the tab if they seek one.

In Alaska, simply tallying the votes presents an additional challenge because of the write-in candidacy of Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Write-in ballots won’t be counted until mid-November, if officials decide it is necessary to do so.

For Rossi, a recount may provide a sense of d

GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman paints rival Jerry Brown as a machine Democrat who as governor decades ago spent big and coddled liberal interests while pursuing an expansive role for government. Brown says he was a deficit hawk who deftly managed the state’s finances and a world-class educational system.

Neither of the conflicting portrayals, featured in the battle the two have been waging on California’s airwaves, is exactly how those eight years went.

Brown disdained political convention and protocol and refused to govern as a run-of-the-mill liberal. He tangled with the Legislature constantly, though it was controlled by fellow Democrats: Lawmakers overrode his vetoes 12 times. And although his early approval rating hit 85% — higher than Ronald Reagan’s had reached — Brown ultimately tripped over his famous frugality, irritating voters by squeezing local schools, delaying road construction and neglecting the growing state university system.

“He had his own ideology, and it was one we had never seen before,” said Paul Priolo, who was the Assembly Republican leader during part of Brown’s governorship. “He was different.”

Brown had many successes, and several of his ideas — carpool lanes, satellite communications for California, computers in classrooms —- are commonplace now. He was the skilled dealmaker who, at 37, negotiated the landmark farm labor agreement that ended the nationwide produce boycotts. He protected some of the state’s most pristine lands and crafted energy policies that sowed the seeds of a green economy long before it was stylish.

But he was also the distracted intellectual who dawdled as soaring property taxes began to crush homeowners, spurring a ballot box revolt. He was paralyzed by the Medfly crisis and criticized for being inattentive to schools.

He recruited a dynamic group of Californians to run the government, spurning the usual insiders and filling many prominent positions with women and minorities for the first time. Some of them helped usher in such pioneering policies as a 25% reduction in air pollution and pressured Detroit for more environmentally friendly cars.

Others flailed. Rose Bird, the ardent death penalty opponent with no judicial experience whom Brown appointed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, was ultimately rejected by a 2-1 margin in a regularly scheduled retention vote.

Lawmakers were inclined to dislike Brown from the start. He came into office on the heels of a successful initiative campaign to ban lavish gifts from lobbyists to politicians. Lawmakers had earlier rejected Brown’s “two hamburgers and a Coke” proposal, inspired by his view that that’s about all a lobbyist should be allowed to buy a lawmaker.

The state Senate leader once ordered the sergeant-at-arms to halt an impromptu Brown press conference in Senate chambers and threatened to have state police forcibly evict him. By Brown’s second term, his bill vetoes were overridden so often that it appeared lawmakers were doing it for sport. No governor since has been overridden.

Sometimes it seemed like Brown was winging it — as he appears to be these days on the stump. His distaste for plans and pamphlets, policy agendas and schedules dates back decades.

“Often we have to just let things emerge,” Brown said in an interview with Playboy in 1976. “If you’re interested in agendas, you might read the inaugural speeches of the last five governors. They say much the same thing: Down with crime, unemployment and taxes.”

Brown had kept his inaugural speech to seven minutes. He talked about unemployment. Then he took a group to Man Fook Lo, a Chinese restaurant in the produce district of Los Angeles. No inaugural ball.

But liberals attracted by Brown’s progressive outlook and family legacy of big projects — his governor father, Pat Brown, built universities and freeways — were disappointed. Brown’s frugality went beyond his rented apartment with a mattress on the floor; he declared an “era of limits” and tightened the state belt even as a record state surplus mounted.

Former Gov. Gray Davis, Brown’s first chief of staff, said Brown suggested senior government staffers save taxpayers money by staying with friends when traveling instead of in hotels.

“His Department of Finance would hide money from us,” said Richard Robinson, a Democrat who represented the Santa Ana area in the Assembly. “It was a major source of frustration.”

Some programs suffered. California slipped from 18th to 31st in the nation, by some measures, in per-pupil school spending. Brown suggested that cutting off some funds for schools would inspire reform. Instead, the school day was shortened, classrooms grew crowded and teachers’ salaries fell behind those in other states.

At the state’s universities, faculty salaries were frozen. Brown said highly compensated state employees such as university professors were deriving “psychic income” from the interesting nature of their work. He vetoed raises for other state employees and curbed spending on transportation, leaving much of the freeway system, a Pat Brown legacy, to deteriorate.

The junior Brown did sign off on construction of the 105 Freeway. But mostly he focused on alternative transportation. He appointed Adriana Gianturco, a 36-year-old Bostonian with no background in highway engineering, to run Caltrans. She had opposed the 105 Freeway, rejected plans for another expressway and transformed the fast lanes on the Santa Monica Freeway into “diamond lanes” for carpoolers.

As young governor, Brown went his own way

President Barack Obama rallied thousands of loyal supporters at the USC campus Friday, urging them to defy skeptics who have predicted losses for Democrats and turn out in force on election day to give his administration more time to turn around the nation’s flailing economy and deliver the change he promised in the 2008 election.

“We need all of you to fight on. We need all of you fired up,” the president told the roaring crowd of students and admirers — 37,500 of them, by USC officials’ estimates — who spilled out across the sun-soaked lawn of Alumni Park and the streets beyond. “We need all of you ready to go, because in just 11 days … you have the chance to set the direction of this state and of this country, not just for the next two years but for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years.”

“Just like you did in 2008,” the president said, “you can defy the conventional wisdom that says young people are apathetic, the conventional wisdom that says you can’t beat the cynicism in politics.”

In the combative tone that has defined his remarks in recent days, Obama offered a sharp rebuke of the Republican agenda, accusing the opposition party of embracing a strategy of “amnesia” after sitting on the sidelines saying “no to everything” while blaming him for the nation’s troubles.

“They figured that y’all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place,” he said. “…But Los Angeles, as I look out on this crowd, this tells me you haven’t forgotten.”

With a new Los Angeles-Times/USC poll showing a narrowing enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats, the president’s trip to California served the dual purpose of motivating his troops and raising money for endangered Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and attorney general candidate Kamala Harris. Boxer, Harris and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, all spoke briefly at the event, asking Democrats to match the fervor of Republicans.

Actor Jamie Foxx also underscored the Democrats’ precarious position by alluding to Obama’s encounter with a woman earlier this year who said she was exhausted by defending him — and then prompting the crowd to chant: “We’re not exhausted.”

Boxer, who has been hit with millions of dollars’ worth of attack ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups, said the other side has “giant, wealthy, unlimited-spending special interests with them.” But, she said, “We have our own army.”

Unlike on his last visit to Los Angeles, the President sought to avoid the wrath of the city’s commuters by flying from LAX to USC on Marine One for the event organized by the Democratic National Party. He also attended a luncheon fundraiser for Boxer and sat for an interview with Spanish-language radio host Piolin in Glendale. Then he jetted off to Nevada for another Democratic rally and a dinner to benefit Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in an uncomfortably close race of his own.

While some Democratic candidates have kept Obama at arm’s length — distancing themselves from the administration’s controversial healthcare legislation and the $814-million stimulus package — Boxer has welcomed his help in California. In this state, 56% of likely voters said in a recent Times/USC poll that they wanted a senator who supports the president.

Boxer has been an unfailing defender of Obama’s policies, even in the face of relentless criticism of Obama’s policies from her challenger, Republican Carly Fiorina. The White House has rewarded Boxer’s loyalty with multiple trips to California on behalf of the three-term senator, who is clinging to a slim lead over Fiorina.

The president’s visit will be followed next week by a fundraising event for Boxer featuring First Lady Michelle Obama. The efforts will provide a much-needed boost to Boxer’s coffers in the final stretch.

New fundraising reports covering the period from Oct. 1 to Oct. 13 showed Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, raising slightly more than Boxer, though Boxer still had twice as much cash on hand as her opponent. But Fiorina announced a new $1-million loan to her campaign Friday for the final push, in addition to the $5.5 million she gave herself for the primary.

At Friday’s rally, the candidates took care to avoid mentioning the names of their rivals but drew distinctions between themselves and their opponents.

Brown signaled that he would reject what he has criticized as the divisive tactics of his opponent: “We don’t scapegoat anybody, not public workers, not immigrants, not anybody because we’re all Californians together.”

And Obama argued that if Republicans were to regain control, they would cut “middle-class families loose to fend for themselves.”

“Their basic philosophy is — you’re on your own,” he said.

Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund called Obama’s visit “another rescue mission for Boxer” and said the fact that Boxer did not mention Friday’s new unemployment figures or her specific plans to address them in her short speech proved “just how out of touch she is with the reality that 1 in 8 Californians is without a job.”

Brown’s Republican rival, Meg Whitman, meanwhile, campaigned in San Jose on Friday with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He had held the all-time record for self-funding a campaign until Whitman, who has put $141.5 million into her gubernatorial bid, surpassed him.

The former EBay chief executive said the Obama administration’s efforts to revive the economy had been a failure.

“The progress has been terrible,” Whitman said. “Look at the unemployment rates we face in California and we face in the country.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael J. Mishak in San Jose contributed to this report.
In USC speech, Obama urges 37,500 Democratic voters to ‘fight on’

One night a few years back, a California communications executive named Deborah Bowker was worried about her husband, who was sick and hospitalized. An old friend told her she shouldn’t be alone, that she should come over and stay the night.

The guest bedroom at the friend’s house was used most often by grandchildren, and contained two tiny beds. That night, Bowker was crying herself to sleep in one of them when the door cracked open. Without a word, Carly Fiorina padded across the room and crawled into the other bed.

Bowker and Fiorina have been close friends since they went to MIT together, and little changed for 20 years — until Fiorina decided to run for the U.S. Senate, with Bowker as her chief of staff.

That fretful night doesn’t seem like a big deal now. Bowker’s husband recovered, and Fiorina might not even remember it, Bowker said with a laugh. Bowker said she hadn’t told the story before and wasn’t sure why she was telling it now — except that she hardly recognizes Fiorina in the image that’s been created through the veneer of politics.

Those closest to Fiorina, 56, describe her as loyal and fun-loving, witty and bright. But they are well aware of the other image — of a pompous diva, aligned with the most strident factions of her Republican Party, pampered by a golden parachute after being fired from her high-profile job.

Fiorina the candidate hasn’t always helped matters. Her tone on the stump can be caustic. At one point in her dogged campaign against the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, an open microphone caught her belittling Boxer’s hair as “so yesterday.”

In a sneering attempt to connect with a “tea party” crowd near Fresno recently, she referred to San Francisco — the center of the metropolitan area where she spent nearly half of her life, the city just up the road from her 5,400-square-foot Los Altos Hills estate — as “that faraway world.”

And her critics tend to roll their eyes when Fiorina — who was raised on opera and French lessons, was the daughter of a powerful judge and has a sterling academic pedigree — pitches herself as a kind of Horatio Alger. Her journey, she said at one recent campaign event, was “only possible in the United States of America.”

Getting to know the person friends call “the real Carly,” meanwhile, can be a confounding task. Stung by several episodes in her life, including the unraveling of her first marriage and the brouhaha surrounding her firing from Hewlett-Packard, where she was chief executive, president and chairman, she is private and guarded.

Fiorina’s work ethic is legendary, and her discipline is one reason Boxer — a lioness of the left seeking her fourth Senate term — is in arguably the toughest race of her career. But Fiorina can be so on-message that she comes across as a machine.

During a recent heat wave, Fiorina met with business leaders in a sweltering City of Industry warehouse. A visitor joked that the record heat might cause her to rethink her position on global warming. Fiorina was not amused, launching instantly into her talking points about climate change — contending that she reserved the right to “challenge the science.”

On the campaign trail, it can be difficult to envision the Fiorina who could often be found dancing with the interns and the secretaries at the end of corporate parties, long after the other executives were gone. Or the woman who, on a recent boat trip, suddenly disappeared; she had jumped off the stern and hauled herself onto a tiny raft with her step-granddaughters.

Friends say she’s a fair cook and has a nice touch on the piano. She was raised Episcopalian but is not a regular churchgoer. She does Jane Fonda-style aerobics, whether she’s home or on the road.

She reads policy briefs on her iPad but reads books the old-fashioned way. She’s a voracious shopper, said one friend of 20 years, and gave one Hong Kong jeweler enough business that he put her picture in the window. She has at her disposal a household net worth estimated as high as $121 million and yachts on both coasts, and will be one of the wealthiest members of Congress if she wins.

She and her husband, Frank Fiorina, a former AT&T executive with blue-collar roots in Pittsburgh, have been married for 25 years. It is a second marriage for both; she calls him a “hunk” with some frequency.

Last fall, she threw him a sock-hop-themed 60th birthday party, tracking down friends he hadn’t seen in 30 years. Fiorina was stylish as ever, said an old friend, Kathy Fitzgerald, in a black dress and textured stockings — and, since she was being treated for breast cancer, bald.

Cara Carleton Sneed was born in Austin, Texas. Her mother, a talented oil painter, was a refugee from a troubled childhood in Ohio. Her father, Joseph Tyree Sneed III, was a University of Texas law professor whose ambition in academia meant that she was perpetually “the new kid,” she wrote in her autobiography, as the family moved repeatedly.

In 1969, while teenagers across America experimented with a new counterculture, Fiorina was in Ghana, where her father was teaching students about the country’s new constitution.

Fiorina’s father soon joined the Stanford law faculty, and she graduated from Stanford with a degree in philosophy and medieval history — which, she jokes, rendered her unemployable. She bounced from job to job, working as a typist, a temp, a receptionist. In 1980, she signed on as a management trainee with AT&T.

Fiorina presents a sharp contrast in images