The San Francisco Chronicle, which is not completely the local paper in CA-10 (I would imagine the Contra Costa Times has more readers) but which is a large regional paper with reach into the suburbs, endorsed John Garamendi for Congress today.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi stands out in this crowd because his vast portfolio of experience is so well aligned with the issues of the times and the big concerns of the district.

Garamendi said he withdrew from the governor’s race when this seat became open because “these are the issues I’ve spent my life on.” Others might suggest his decision was conveniently pragmatic – his bid for the Democratic nomination was going nowhere – but there is no doubt about his qualifications for Congress, especially in this district. He was an aggressive and effective insurance commissioner (think health care, consumer issues such as foreclosure), deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior (delta, climate change) and a state legislator from 1974 to 1991.

The 64-year-old Garamendi has the confidence and depth of knowledge that would allow him to hit the ground running in Congress – and his history suggests he would be unabashed in doing so.

The op-ed had good words for practically everyone running, particularly Anthony Woods, but went with Garamendi.  In a weird example of symmetry, Bruce Brugmann and the SF Bay Guardian wrote almost exactly the same editorial today.

Meanwhile, Joan Buchanan debuted a spot for the last two weeks of the campaign, which looks pretty much like a generic bio spot, although with her being the only prominent woman in the field, an ad just repeating “Joan Buchanan, Joan Buchanan” for 30 seconds would be somewhat effective (and basically that’s what this spot does).  The three electeds are all up on cable TV now.  Will Anthony Woods use some of his money for TV?

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.

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.

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.

The 4th District had a debate as well last night, the fifth and final of the campaign, and it was spirited.

Every scathing remark and harsh charge that’s gone back and forth in the congressional race between Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown got one more airing Tuesday night.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the South Nevada County Chamber of Commerce south of Grass Valley, McClintock was painted as a do-nothing career politician and Brown as a tax-loving big-government advocate.

And there was also some talk about issues, mixed in with the shots, though sometimes each answer was equal parts both.

It was the usual nonsense: McClintock wants to drill here and drill now.  McClintock wants no taxes and no government.  McClintock wants to privatize Social Security (yes, even now).  McClintock thinks Keebler elves can build the roads and bridges and a thimble-full of oil can power a Lexus.  He’s a magical thinker.  But I have to say that this was my favorite part, and not just because McClintock doesn’t know the meaning of the word “liquidity.”

McClintock also roundly criticized the recently passed Wall Street bailout package, saying the better route was to put liquidity into the market.

Brown countered that he supported the plan because something needed to be done, then made reference to recent Federal Election Commission reports that showed McClintock’s campaign in debt.

“You can’t even run your own campaign on a balanced budget, so I don’t trust you to run our nation’s budget,” Brown said.

Brown also hit McClintock over spending the past two years in Sacramento without getting one piece of legislation passed.

Brown took aim at McClintock’s record as a state legislator, making reference to a recent Sacramento Bee story that reported McClintock had a perfect record of getting no legislation passed in the last two years.

“This is about actual results, and not talking about what you want to do unless you propose something else you can get passed,” Brown said.

The debate is not going to have a major viewing audience.  But the airwaves will, and the DCCC has just dropped a long-awaited ad in the district.  It’s good.

That’s quite a lot for 30 seconds, but they pretty much cover California’s Alan Keyes and make him out to be the punchline that he is.

The question is whether or not McClintock has 10 cents to respond to this.

Politico picks up the story of Tom McClintock’s fundraising woes, and the fact that he was in the red as of October 1.  I didn’t know this:

But according to his campaign finance reports, he heads into the home stretch without much campaign cash left. McClintock spent more money than he raised, ending September with just $94,000 in his campaign account.

He is not currently airing airing any television ads, and hasn’t been for the last two weeks.

If he’s off the air right now, it’s going to be next to impossible for him to get back on.  The NRCC doesn’t have a whole lot of money to play with, especially considering all the incumbents they have to defend.  And the GOTV efforts, radio, phone calls, mailers, etc., cost plenty of money.  If McClintock’s living from hand to mouth right now, he’s not going to get back on TV.  And needless to say, Charlie Brown has plenty of money to blanket TV in the final two weeks.  It’s incredible.

And what’s amazing is that this is how McClintock handled the primary as well.  He overspent early and wound up running on fumes the last couple weeks.  It wasn’t a big deal against Doug Ose, but against a formidable opponent like Brown it’ll matter.  The supposed fiscal conservative can’t even manage his own campaign stash.

Here’s what’s happening on the campaign trail.

• CA-11: Apparently trying to win some kind of award for the worst attack website in history, Jon Fleischman of the Flash Report (a terribly designed website in its own right) has put together One Term Is Enough, in all of its way-too-large masthead, ridiculously-spare with no action items or columns, design out of Quark X-Press glory.  Man, that’s ugly.  And I think the focus on Jerry McNerney’s earmarks, given the summer of scandal that Dean Andal has lived through which is entirely about a construction contract with a community college (if he was in Congress, that would be, basically, an earmark), is kind of silly.  Meanwhile, McNerney is up with his first ad of the cycle, focusing on his work on behalf of troops and veterans.

• AD-80: As soyinkafan noted, Manuel Perez and Gary Jeandron had a debate where Jeandron stated his support for a tax increase in Imperial County.  That’s not likely to help him with the conservative base, but clearly Jeandron understands that he has to move to left if he has any chance to win this seat.  The Palm Springs Desert Sun has a debate report here.

• SD-19: Tony Strickland’s latest endorsement is Erin Brockovich, of all people.  However, this could be less of a reach across the aisle as it appears.

Ventura County Star columnist Timm Herdt got Strickland’s Democratic opponent Hannah-Beth Jackson on the phone, who said she was “a little surprised” by Brockovich backing her opponent.

While Brockovich says she is a Democrat in the ad, she writes on her blog that she’s ready to leave the party and become an independent.

“I am ready to turn because both parties are acting foolish and judgmental and attacking,” she writes.

She also has kind words for GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

“I am proud to be a member of the same Strong Woman’s Club that Sarah Palin is in.” Brockovich writes.

• AD-15: As has been noted, Joan Buchanan released her first campaign ad of the cycle.  Her opponent Abram Wilson responded with his own ad, also biographical in nature, and his campaign has questioned the Buchanan spot and her commitment to fiscal responsibility.  I suppose signing a “no-tax” pledge is the height of responsibility, then.

• AD-30: We were all expecting it, and now Nicole Parra has officially endorsed Republican Danny Gilmore in the election to replace her.  This is a family fight moved into the political sphere – the Parra-Florez feud is well-known.  

Parra’s support of Danny Gilmore angered Democratic Party leaders, but comes as no surprise because she has been praising Gilmore for months.

“I will endorse Danny Gilmore in the near future and I will campaign for him and do commercials,” Parra said in an interview. Gilmore, a retired California Highway Patrol officer from Hanford, is running against Democrat Fran Florez, mother of state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, a longtime Parra rival.

• LA Board of Supes: Turns out that not only is Bernard Parks turning to Republicans to help him get elected over progressive State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, but for ten years he was a member of the American Independent Party (!).

According to voter registration forms certified by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder:

Bernard Parks left the Democratic Party and registered as an American Independent on February 12, 1992 – just in time to miss the opportunity to vote for President Bill Clinton.

He registered again as an American Independent on August 9, 1996.

President George Bush was elected in November 2000 – but Parks still wouldn’t become a Democrat for nearly a year and a half.

Parks was fired as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department on April 9, 2002. Shortly thereafter, he began to prepare to run for Los Angeles City Council, and re-registered as a Democrat on May 30, 2002. Less than a year later, he was elected to the City Council.

That is very strange, especially for an African-American to sign up with a party which is the legacy of George Wallace.