Charlie Cook, the favored Congressional tipster for insiders, is notoriously conservative in his selections.  And as such, he’s slow to recognize races that, based on outdated fundamentals, simply “can’t” be competitive.  It’s embarrassing that it’s taken him this long to move CA-04 to a toss-up.  Here’s his precis:

CA-04 OPEN (Doolittle) Lean Republican to Toss Up

All GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock needed to do to put this district away was to run ads noting Democratic nominee Charlie Brown’s attendance at anti-war rallies. The only problem? McClintock ran out of money too soon and has been inexplicably “dark” on broadcast television in the final phase of the campaign, allowing Brown and the DCCC to remain in strong contention by portraying McClintock as a carpetbagger and self-serving career politician.

Republicans in Washington fret that McClintock has run a second rate campaign and that even with an extensive statewide fundraising network, he has failed to put together a competent media strategy. The NRCC, too broke to come to McClintock’s rescue, is also off the air in the expensive Sacramento market. Some Republicans suggest that in the end, their biggest advantage in this district may be the presence of Proposition 8, a measure to eliminate same-sex marriage, on the California ballot. This race should be a slam dunk for the GOP, but right now it is a toss up.

First of all, there’s no way that misleading anti-war rally attack would have derailed the Brown campaign.  Most of the country is against the war.  But putting that aside, Cook shares my astonishment that Mr. Fiscal Conservative McClintock managed to run out of money weeks before the race was over.  That is some epic mismanagement.

Cook is wrong about another thing, the NRCC is trying to ride to the rescue, up with a new ad trying to paint Brown as a “liberal yes man.”  I just don’t think this is the year to throw around the “L” word like it’s some kind of boogeyman.  Anyway, don’t they know that these days, you’re supposed to call the Democrat a socialist or a Marxist?  Looking at the ad, it looks like the NRCC and McClintock went Dutch on it.

The point is that the GOP hasn’t totally given up on this race, and while I’m confident in Brown’s abilities he could definitely use some reinforcements in the final week.  You can give at the Calitics ActBlue page.

The other day I wondered if the No on 8 side was being too cautious in their advertising, instead of putting an actual face on the discrimination and harm that would be suffered if marriage rights were eliminated for a particular class of people.  Well, this video isn’t exactly that, but it certainly makes the point about discrimination.  Via Amanda at Pandagon, this is my favorite video of the cycle.  A group redubbed the voices on a video of young people ranting about all the supposed consequences about gay marriage, and changed it so they say “interracial marriage.”  It’s kind of perfect:

See, this comes down to discrimination, pure and simple.  The other side wants to talk about ancillary outcomes, but really they want to hurt LGBT people.  I mean, we have to be willing to say that.  The other side has no problem outlining what they consider to be the stakes, as crazy as they think they are:

“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.”

“We’ve picked bad presidents before, and we’ve survived as a nation,” said Mr. Perkins, who has made two trips to California in the last six weeks. “But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.”

I’m glad that No on 8 is raising a lot of money, and that high-profile Californians like Maria Shriver are on board.  But at some point in this final week, someone has to break this down.  This is about harming same-sex couples.

I know that we all have to be focused on the final eight days of this election, and I’m committed to bringing a great victory for Senator Obama, wins up and down our Congressional and legislative targets, and progressive values embodied in passing high speed rail and beating back the extremism of Props. 4, 6, 8, and 9.  But there are some events on the near-term horizon that we all need to be aware of going forward.  The challenge does not end on November 4.  Eternal vigilance, price of liberty, etc.

• Rick Caruso, a right-wing Bush Republican developer who created the great eyesore that is The Grove in Los Angeles along with Americana at Brand in Glendale, is seriously considering a run for LA Mayor.  Right now, there will either be a legitimate election between Caruso and Antonio Villaraigosa, or Villaraigosa will win in a walk.  Caruso, a billionaire, says he will make the decision by the end of the week.  Caruso would certainly self-fund and would have the ability to basically buy the seat if he were so inclined.  Richard Riordan was able to win as a Republican and I have no doubt that Caruso could as well.  He’d play it moderate on social issues over which the mayor has no jurisdiction, and mask his true colors as a right-wing plutocrat.  As we head into an economic downturn, Caruso would be simply horrendous for the biggest city in the state.

• Not only has Arnold Schwarzenegger already tipped off his next move after redistricting reform (and he shouldn’t be counting his chickens), but the ballot initiative has already been filed.  A measure calling for open primaries has been handed in to the Secretary of State.  Instead of a primary where the top vote-getter in each party would move to the general election, open primaries would move the top two regardless of party into the general.  Candidates would also be allowed to remove their party affiliation from the ballot.  The Governor’s office is saying they have nothing to do with this filing, but color me skeptical.  We’ve already beaten the open primary concept at the ballot box at least once in recent years.  The political culture is already too diffuse to allow a candidate to hide their party affiliation at the ballot, and the success of this idea in providing competition to the political process is more than mixed.

• And then there’s the Governor’s race in 2010.  That gadfly Willie Brown is telling anyone who will listen that Dianne Feinstein is a legitimate candidate and is seriously considering the race:

She didn’t tell me outright that she’s running. She talked a lot about how she wanted to make sure the Democrats have 60 seats in the Senate after Nov. 4 so they and Barack Obama will be filibuster-proof – assuming he’s elected as well.

But she didn’t talk about staying in the Senate, either.

She talked about how things are supposed to work between the Legislature and the governor, and she wondered why they aren’t working these days – and did I have any formula for fixing it?

She even brought notes. I don’t know who prepared them, but somebody had done what appeared to be a detailed briefing paper on the state of California, including its finances.

It was not the kind of information you’d be seeking unless you figured that dealing with that mess might soon be your job.

Good thing she’s asking Willie Brown on how to fix Sacramento.  I’m sure that appealing to the state’s high Broderists would be the only way she would ever govern.  God forbid she ask her constituents.

Let me be perfectly clear.  Dianne Feinstein cannot be allowed to ever assume the Governor’s mansion.  She has stabbed Democrats in the back time and again in the US Senate and would only do the same as Governor.  A perfect example of this is her cutting an ad for No on Prop. 5, putting her face out in front of a position DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED to the consensus view of the state Democratic Party.  It’s not surprising; DiFi is the original “tough on crime” Democrat, and policies like the ones she advocates have caused a terrible crisis in our prisons where we are routinely violating the Constitutional rights of our citizens and bankrupting the state to pay for this warehousing.  And yes, Jerry Brown’s no good on this either; there’s a political class of Democrats that think being tough on crime is the right thing to do, despite thirty years’ worth of failure reflected in our current prison mess.

Compare this to our other Senator from the state and how she’s been busying herself this campaign season – raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for potential Senate colleagues, sending a mass email to her entire list urging a No vote on Prop. 8 (good for Sen. Boxer) and writing the Treasury Department to demand that the government backstop the bad deals of AIG that would absolutely cripple public transit across the state.  That’s what a Senator that has respect for her constituents would do, not the contempt that Sen. Feinstein shows.

So, those are the looming battles.

There’s so much going on in this bounty of close races, it’s hard to follow it all as just lil’ ol’ me and without a full-time staff.  But clearly, California is terribly broken because there are no competitive seats and so we must change the redistricting process and re-gerrymander competitiveness into them.  Right?  On the flip, I offer an update on every seat that’s even reasonably close.  I’ll get to the Assembly and Senate races later today or tomorrow.

CA-11, CA-04, CA-03, CA-46, CA-50 and much more on the flip!  Including the infamous “phone sex robocall”… no, I’m not kidding.

• CA-11.  Not much going on here.  Jerry McNerney’s lead is stable and he still has a huge cash lead in the October 15 numbers (I didn’t do a full report on them because at this stage you either have the money or you don’t).  It doesn’t appear that the national Republicans are getting involved in this race in any meaningful way.  The SF Chronicle endorsed McNerney over the weekend.  SAFE DEM.

• CA-04.  As I reported yesterday, the poll numbers are looking solid for Charlie Brown in his effort to flip this Northern California-area seat.  And Tom McClintock is out of money.  Some fiscal conservative.  LEAN DEM. (I wanted to go Likely but didn’t want to jinx it)

• CA-50.  This was the only other seat that wound up on the infamous GOP “Death List.”  The national Republicans wrote off CA-04 and considered this one to be the next closest race out there, adding that “if there’s a wave, (this seat) could be in trouble.”  Well guess what, there’s a wave.  Trying to save his skin, Brian Bilbray is turning to the issue of Congressional earmarks, putting out a mailer that claims Nick Leibham would stuff appropriations bills with pork.  This is extremely unlikely for a freshman Congresscritter to even be able to do – normally the incumbent runs on his ability to bring home the bacon.  In fact, Bilbray requested $38 million in pork this year.  Anyone thinking earmarks are the scourge of the federal government is not serious about the budget process, and this shows to me that Bilbray is trying to throw up a smokescreen.  He’s scared.  TOSS UP.

• CA-03.  Check out Dan Lungren whining because his Vietnam Vet opponent Bill Durston bothered to point out that Lungren never served but is eager to send American men and women into battle to do so.

“I’m just a little fed up with this guy and his attitude accusing me of being unpatriotic,” Lungren said in a telephone interview today. “There is not just McCarthyism on the right. There evidently is McCarthyism on the left. All I ask is what they said at the McCarthy hearings years ago: ‘Have you no honor, Sir?'”

The Republican incumbent was irked when Durston questioned his lack of military service in Thursday night’s candidate forum in Carmichael and followed up with a television advertisement and a mailer attacking Lungren as someone “who never served in the military and has never provided public documentation to show why.”

The television ad says in part: “Have you seen the dishonest mailer from Dan Lungren accusing decorated Marine Corps Combat Veteran Dr. Bill Durston of not supporting our troops? The same Dan Lungren who never served himself, who never documented how he got a medical draft deferment.”

In the Carmichael forum, Durston complained about a Lungren mailer questioning his support for the military and chided the congressman by saying: “Dan Lungren may have joined the Cub Scouts. But I joined the United States Marines at the height of the Vietnam War. I served in combat and was decorated for courage under fire… . While I was fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, Lungren was sitting out the war on a medical draft deferment, serving as the chair of youth for Nixon.”

Look, Lungren clearly started this fight by claiming that Durston was an antiwar DFH for wanting to get out of Iraq.  If he can’t take the heat when Durston makes perfectly factual statements about him, maybe he shouldn’t be in politics.  Meanwhile, John Garamendi endorsed Dr. Durston over the weekend, and called Lungren “a draft dodger.”  Hey, politics ain’t beanbag.  SLIGHT LEAN REPUBLICAN.

• CA-46.  Former Republican Congressman and Presidential candidate Pete McCloskey came down to Orange County over the weekend to endorse Debbie Cook and rally the troops.  I’m hearing from the campaign that Debbie’s recent fundraising has been fantastic and their targeted mailers and TV ads are up and running.  Dana Rohrabacher had better brace himself for that progressive wave; this race is going to be tight.  SLIGHT LEAN REPUBLICAN.

• CA-45.  This race between Mary Bono Mack and Julie Bornstein has been much quieter than I expected.  Bono Mack has taken some heat in the large LGBT community in the district by calling them “a group of people,” but her large campaign war chest and public invisibility has made her a difficult target.  She’s avoided Bornstein almost completely in the campaign, and has run deceptive ads linking Bornstein to Fannie and Freddie, which as we know created the WHOLE FINANCIAL CRISIS.  I think increased turnout is going to be a problem for Mack but she may just skate by.  LEAN REPUBLICAN.

• CA-26.  The problem with Russ Warner’s campaign was always going to be overcoming that huge pot of money David Dreier was sitting on.  This forced him to spend more and more time raising funds and less talking to voters.  Howie Klein at Blue America is trying to come to Warner’s rescue with a pretty salacious mailer hitting Dreier for his, well, open secret.  You can go over to Down With Tyranny and check it out.  LEAN REPUBLICAN.

• CA-52.  Duncan D. Hunter and Mike Lumpkin debated last week and it was pretty spirited, with Lumpkin attacking Hunter for being a legacy hire and a “Congressman’s kid.”  I don’t know if that’ll cut it in this district, especially with Hunter having a serious cash advantage, though I keep hearing about polls showing this race close.  LIKELY REPUBLICAN.

• CA-42.  Ed Chau has gotten around to running his first ad of the cycle, focusing on Gary Miller’s corruption.  This is another race buoyed by internal polling that shows it close, but I’ll believe it when I see it.  LIKELY REPUBLICAN.

• CA-01: This race against incumbent Rep. Mike Thompson (D) is not even close, but I had to add this one because of this amazing robocall:

Zane Starkewolf, candidate for CA-1, and running as a “green republication” decided to launch an ILLEGAL robo call (all robo calls are illegal in CA) with the following transcript:  Audio here.

“Mike Thompson has been a baaaaaad boy.  We all said no to the bailout but Thompson backed Bush.  Just like he did with the Patriot act, uhhhhhh, vote YESSSSSSSSS ! for Zane.”

He actually had to send out a press release DEFENDING this call.  Hysterical.

The biggest newspaper in the region, the Sacramento Bee, makes the case for Charlie Brown and a new direction in the district, particularly on the area of putting pragmatism above ideology.  Now, I don’t totally agree with all the conclusions of the editorial, but the last bit is unquestionably true:

Brown understands that the that the mortgage crisis, the collapse of the financial system, the credit crunch and the recession are real. He would have supported the rescue plan because doing nothing was worse than doing something, though he believes Congress has done a poor job of selling the package. And the final package assured taxpayers get any profits, required congressional oversight, banned golden parachutes.

This is telling. McClintock sticks to ideology; Brown pragmatically puts the nation first.

The nation and the 4th District need to find ways out of partisan and ideological gridlock. Elect Charlie Brown to Congress.

Now, if the final package wasn’t such a dog with fleas that the feds have basically scrapped it, and if the banks weren’t using it to collect free money instead of facilitating lending, this would be a stronger argument.  Whatever; the Bee’s endorsements have been profoundly odd, and have seemed to value bipartisan seriousness over everything.  But I think there’s a difference between rejecting partisanship and abandoning core principles.  I think that Charlie Brown will govern the way he has campaigned, by working through problems and using his best judgment based on his values and principles.  Tom McClintock is incapable of adapting to changing information whatsoever.

What he will do is try to play dirty to win the election, including sending nasty robocalls throughout the district because they’re cheap for his cash-strapped campaign.  The problem is that they haven’t done a good job of checking their call lists.  The Brown campaign, for example, got robocalled.

UPDATE: The latest poll shows Brown expanding his slim but measurable lead.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 5% (9/23-25 results)

McClintock (R) 42 (41)

Brown (D) 48 (46)

Among early voters (13 percent of respondents)

McClintock (R) 38

Brown (D) 56

Brown takes independents 51-34.  McClintock’s fav/unfav is at 44/42.  Brown is at 49/29.  And McClintock is out of the cash he’d need to push up Brown’s unfavorables.  

This is very good news.  Let’s get this seat.  Stay for Change.

If you tool around the Internets as much as I do, you may have noticed this.  The No on 8 campaign has been using Barack Obama’s logo and image in Web ads that say “Obama Calls Prop. 8 Divisive And Discriminatory”.  Clicking on the ad will take you to this page, at the No On Prop. 8 site, with a couple quotes from Sen. Obama about the measure.

The Obama campaign would not let this happen on its own.  God for them for allowing the No on 8 campaign to associate with his remarks.  Obama has shown a willingness to lend himself to the efforts of downticket races – he’s cut an ad for Oregon US Senate candidate Jeff Merkley – though I doubt we’ll see much more than this Web advertising from him on Prop. 8.

Here are a couple other things I think need to happen to help the Prop. 8 cause.  First, Google needs to stop running ads that violate their own policies.  Google has a very specific standard for those groups that use their architecture to advertise, which includes banning ads that advocate against a “protected class” like the LGBT community.  Yet they allow Yes on 8 to use Google ads.  I know Google as a company is on the right side of this debate, but they can either stand behind their stated policy or not.

The other thing that the no side might want to consider is putting an actual face on who would be discriminated against with this measure.  I know this has been a source of controversy that’s simmered under the surface, but today Jonathan Rauch brings it up in the LA Times.

The need to walk that tightrope helps explain why the actual subjects of next month’s initiative, gay couples, were “inned” by the “No on 8” campaign’s ads. (Full disclosure: I am a “No on 8” donor.) One ad, for example, features a gray-haired straight couple. “Our gay daughter and thousands of our fellow Californians will lose the right to marry,” says mother Julia Thoron.

A subsequent ad, all text with voice-over narration, mentions marriage only once (“Regardless of how you feel about marriage, it’s wrong to treat people differently under the law”) and never uses the phrase “gay marriage” or even the word “gay.” Just as oblique was a spot, released Wednesday, in which state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell reassures viewers that “Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools or kids. Our schools aren’t required to teach anything about marriage.” A casual viewer could have come away from these ads puzzled as to exactly what right thousands of Californians might be about to lose.

Asked about the absence of gay couples, a senior “No on 8” official told KPIX-TV in San Francisco that “from all the knowledge that we have and research that we have, [those] are not the best images to move people.” Children, also, were missing; showing kids with same-sex parents could too easily backfire […]

Whatever the tactical considerations, the absence of gay couples and gay marriages from California’s gay-marriage debate makes for an oddly hollow discussion. It leaves voters of good conscience to conjure in their own minds the ads that are not being aired: Ads that show how gay marriage directly affects the couples and communities that need it most.

You can show me all the data you want; “hollow” is the best word for what’s happening.  Neither side is talking about the actual proposition in their messaging.  I expect that from the Yes side, to hide their serial homophobia and focus on made-up protections of imagined rights that would be encroached upon.  But when a self-described squish like Kevin Drum terms No on 8’s ads “bland and generic,” something is wrong.  Without a clear indication, as done in the Ellen DeGeneres PSA, of who would be harmed by this measure and why, there’s this subconscious message of shame about the rights that this campaign is trying to defend.

On a completely unrelated note, this is a great post from a minister discussing what the Bible actually says about marriage.

One of the biggest ways you can impact this election is to disseminate information to your circle of friends.  A couple organizations have stepped up in a big way to make that process smooth and easy.

Google noticed that millions of people were searching through their site for voting information – where their polling place is, when the last day for early voting is, etc.  Google created this great tool as a one-stop shop to answer all of those questions.

It’s hard to believe that in 2008, information so important to U.S. citizens and the democratic process isn’t well organized on the web. To solve this problem, we’ve released our US Voter Info site, an effort to simplify and centralize voting locations and registration information.

Are you registered to vote? What’s the best way to obtain an absentee ballot? When people visit the site, answers to these questions appear. And anyone with a website can provide the same information. The US Voter Info gadget places a simple search box that expands to show a full set of voter information when someone enters an address.

We are also offering a simpler way to find out where to vote. By entering a home address, citizens across the country will be able to find their polling place for election day.

The tool is super-easy and effective.  Tell your friends.

Another incredible tool comes from our friends at CREDO mobile.  It’s called TXT Out The Vote, and it enabled you to send targeted text messages in California opposing Prop. 4 (parental notification for abortion) and Prop. 8 (eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry).  The messages, which you can send to any friend or family member with a cell phone, will be delivered on Election Day.  This kind of “personal phone banking” is one of the best ways to get out the vote.  Check it out at TXT Out The Vote.  Standard text messaging rates apply.

Here’s some tidbits from the campaign trail with 12 days out:

• CA-03: Bill Durston and Dan Lungren debated last night, and it was a predictable affair, says Randy Bayne:

Nothing new, no fireworks, no knockout punch, no excitement of any kind was reported by either MyMotherLode.com or the Stockton Record. Just what we already know – Durston wants us out of Iraq, doesn’t like No Child Left Behind, and thinks the bailout is the wrong solution. Lungren supports the occupation, favors No Child Left Behind, and voted for the bailout.

If you’re looking for change from eight years of down the toilet policy, and you don’t want to continue flushing our future down the crapper – vote for Bill Durston.

If the registration stats cited by anecdotal reports are at all accurate, we’re going to be very close to registration parity in this seat by Election Day.  Lungren may be acting positive in public, but inside the campaign they must be terrified.  They probably didn’t expect Durston to run a credible campaign.

• CA-04: Tom McClintock has caught a bit of trouble for relating gay people to dogs in a roundabout way.

“Lincoln asked, ‘If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one,'” McClintock said in a statement. “And calling a homosexual partnership a marriage doesn’t make it one.”

I’m pretty sure that means nothing at all, but California’s Alan Keyes has had to distance himself from the comment.  Meanwhile his much bigger problem is lacking the funds to run a proper campaign.  He’s now taken to relying on cheap robocalls, and Charlie Brown has immediately called on him to stop.  Dirty trick robocalls that appeared to be coming from the Brown campaign were a major factor in John Doolittle’s narrow re-election in 2006.

• CA-46: I didn’t get a chance to post Debbie Cook’s amazing closing statement at Tuesday’s debate.  Here it is.

The OC Register has a story on this race today.  These “Challenger hopes to upset incumbent” stories have a familiar feel to them – the pose of surprise that the race is competitive, the quote from the shallow CW fountain like Allen Hoffenblum explaining why the incumbent is probably still safe, and the overall sense of shock, which would be natural if you weren’t paying attention for the last 18 months, like, um, us.

• Assembly & Senate: Art Torres and Ron Nehring had a debate yesterday, and I think Torres needed to be prepped a little better.  He claimed that Democrats could grab a 2/3 majority in the legislature but then couldn’t come up with a simple list of what seats are in play.  He should be reading more Calitics.  Nehring replied with a lot of bunk and a little truth.

None of that adds up to 54 and 27, of course, and Nehring said Torres’ boast “just doesn’t pencil out.”

He noted that Democratic efforts to oust Sen. Jeff Denham via recall failed miserably this year and the party ended up with no opponent to challenge Sen. Abel Maldonado in Santa Maria, a district believed to be winnable by a Democrat.

On the Assembly side, Nehring said, Republicans “have a great shot at holding on to” the 15th and “have a number of strategic advantages in the 78th (because) the Democrats have nominated the most liberal candidate (Marty Block) they possibly could.”

In the 80th, the Democratic candidate (Manuel Perez) “is getting hammered on … social issues which are important to many people in the Latino community,” Nehring said.

“I don’t know how can you be serious about trying to have a two-thirds vote in the Legislature,” Nehring told Torres, “when you blow so many of these opportunities.”

I’ll go bottom to top on this.  Manuel Perez is going to CRUSH Gary Jeandron, and if anyone’s being hammered, it’s the Republicans.  The IE money is pretty one-sided in the state.  Between that and the registration gains, it’ll take more than just spin to dig your party out of its self-created hole, Mr. Nehring.

However, on one point I will agree with you.  The Denham recall and Maldonado disaster have indeed stopped the potential forward momentum in the Senate.  Of course, Torres couldn’t say the plain truth – that Don Perata is among the worst leaders in recent Democratic Party history, and has completely set back the state in major ways by his blunders.  He is an embarrassment.