• General: Democratic challengers ought to take a close look at two bills passed through the House this week that make conservative priorities pretty clear. HR 6983, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity Act, finally limits the ability of insurance companies to prohibit treatment of mental health in their policies. John Campbell, Darrell Issa, Ed Royce and Dana Rohrabacher were among the 47 Republicans to vote against it. HR 5244, the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, would severely limit predatory lending from an industry that is at least a partial cause of the current crisis in credit. Brian Bilbray, David Dreier, Gary Miller, Jerry Lewis, Dan Lungren, Campbell, Issa, Royce and Rohrabacher were among the 111 Republicans who voted against that. These ads write themselves.
• CA-03: Bill Durston is up with two ads, as mentioned by akogun. It's unclear how big the buy is. One is a bio spot, and the other hits Dan Lungren for his, er, unique travel plans.
• CA-04: A lot to report here. While Tom McClintock is off putting together propaganda blogs attacking Charlie Brown, and of all things, this website, he ought to be paying attention to his campaign manager problem.
The camp of Democratic candidate Charlie Brown claims evidence shows state Sen. McClintock, a Republican, effectively is a substitute Doolittle, and in particular asserts that McClintock campaign manager John Feliz's connections to Doolittle are significant.
"John Feliz is the architect of Doolittle's first known political-practices transgression," said Todd Stenhouse, Brown spokesman. "The bottom line is McClintock claims not to be John Doolittle, yet he's using his former campaign manager, and he has the same treasurer (David Bauer)."
McClintock campaign spokesman Bill George said, "John Feliz hasn't worked for Doolittle in 18 to 20 years."
Note that he doesn't respond to Bauer, who is still the treasurer for an active Doolittle campaign committee.
Meanwhile, Charlie Brown has endorsed the Pickens Pledge. I am in complete agreement that the Pickens Plan for energy independence is just a scheme for a rich guy to get richer, but the pledge merely calls for an energy plan to be enacted in the first 100 days of the next Administration. There is a difference.
• CA-50: Al Gore was in the district to raise money for Nick Leibham. The Leibham campaign hopes this will kick-start their efforts, but the Cook Political Report recently downgraded the race to "Solid Republican." Their belief is that these Republican districts have been injected with momentum with Sarah Palin energizing conservatives to vote. We'll see.
• CA-46: One thing is clear: Dana Rohrabacher may allow insurance companies deny treatment to the mentally ill, and he may let the credit card companies fleece his constituents, but he draws the line at the Wall Street bailout. That's nothing new - lots of lawmakers are opposed to the bailout - but of course, the fact that Debbie Cook was first out of the gate with her opposition forced his hand, to be sure. Meanwhile, Cook was feted with a "Truth To Power" at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference this week. On Sunday, there's a small dollar fundraiser for Cook in Palos Verdes. Details and tickets at the ActBlue page here. I will be in attendance Sunday, so please come out if you're in the area.
• SD-19: Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad out with some personal testimonials about her leadership on a chemical spill in her district when she was in the Assembly, and I have to say I like it.
On Tuesday, Villaraigosa was forced into the fray - reluctantly, his aides said - after Parks had the city send a 60-day eviction notice to Strategic Concepts of Organizing and Policy Education, a nonprofit focused on community organizing and job training.
Parks said SCOPE was using the old fire station at 1715 Florence Ave. in South Los Angeles to help the Ridley-Thomas campaign, which the group denies.
