I’m baffled by Mark DeSaulnier’s decision to run a goofy Jib-Jab attack ad on John Garamendi based on the one thing we pretty much know voters could give a crap about – district residency.

First of all, Jib-Jab ads are to 2009 what using Matrix-style graphics were to 2005 – dated, uncreative and boring.  Second, look merely to the north and the election of Tom McClintock, who lived 400 miles away from the district, or to the east of him and at one of the SUBJECTS of the ad, Dan Lungren, who has represented Long Beach as well as the Sacramento area, for evidence that Voters. Just. Don’t. Care.  They want a candidate who will fight for them and who will make bold stands on big issues.  Garamendi has done that and so has DeSaulnier on occasion, and I understand that the campaign must be looking for something to use as an attack in the absence of policy.  But this ain’t it.

Also, if this is about running where the party needs someone the least, couldn’t that also apply to DeSaulnier, attempting to leave the state legislature at a time when the Yacht Party uses the 2/3 rule to hijack state government, and any vacancy in the Assembly or Senate just emboldens them and raises the bar?  Why even bother with an attack like this if it can be plausibly turned on its head so easily?  Maybe because DeSaulnier reads the polls and figured that he had to go on the attack.

Primary fights are so rarely about issues, but we have tried at Calitics to dig down and see what each candidate in CA-10 believes.  You can read those interviews at the CA-10 tag, or educate yourself further by watching this candidate forum.

…by contrast, the ad Garamendi released today is simple and straightforward and issue-based, with him talking to the camera about health care, although I could do without using the same footage of him on the horse twice.