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With days to go before Tuesday's election, the hot contest for the 2nd District seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is sending volleys of attack brochures to voters' mailboxes. Both main contenders in the nine-candidate field are experienced leaders. State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) served on the L.A. City Council before being elected to the Legislature, and Councilman Bernard C. Parks was previously chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Tony Schwartz, who helped create the infamous "daisy ad" that ran only once during the 1964 presidential race but changed political advertising forever, has died. He was 84. Schwartz died Sunday at his home in Manhattan, N.Y., said his daughter, Kayla Schwartz-Burridge. He had been suffering from heart valve stenosis.

Countering critics' portrayal of him as an unpatriotic elitist, Barack Obama opened his general-election ad campaign Thursday with a TV spot trumpeting his "love of country" and "values straight from the Kansas heartland." The Democratic Party's likely presidential nominee is running the commercial in a dozen battleground states, but also in six that lean heavily Republican: Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska.

As voters steam over gas prices, Republican congressional candidates are bracing for a gusher of ads from now until election day attacking their ties to oil companies. "What kind of mark has Bob Schaffer made as a politician?" says an ad attacking Colorado's Republican Senate candidate and former congressman.

Photos flash of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Crowds roar and lights pop. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world," says a woman's voice. Then it becomes clear: The TV ad is not about a tabloid personality -- it's about Barack Obama. In launching a negative ad Wednesday that it says will run in 11 states, John McCain's campaign gave its clearest signal yet that its main focus right now isn't talking about the presumed Republican nominee.

At the end of an increasingly contentious week of campaigning, Sen. John McCain denied Friday that he was going negative against Sen. Barack Obama, even as his camp released a new Web ad that mockingly contrasts Obama's soaring rhetoric with clips of Charlton Heston playing Moses in "The Ten Commandments." Earlier this week, McCain's campaign unveiled an ad that compared the Illinois senator to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Paris Hilton's mother is annoyed that John McCain used her daughter to mock Democrat Barack Obama. McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, unveiled a campaign ad last week likening Obama to celebrities Hilton and singer Britney Spears. "It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs," Kathy Hilton said on the liberal Huffington Post website. She called the ad "a complete waste of the money John McCain's contributors have donated to his campaign."

Paris Hilton, the hotel heiress known for partying, not politics, wants your vote. She announced her candidacy for president Tuesday in an online video, making her case reclining poolside in a leopard-print bathing suit and gold high heels. "I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead," she said, beaming. It was a spoof, of course, a response to the ad Republican candidate John McCain launched last week comparing Democratic rival Barack Obama to Hilton and Britney Spears.

When John McCain railed against the Bush administration or bucked his party on campaign finance reform, he was his Democratic colleagues' favorite Republican. But their praise is coming back to haunt them. On Thursday, McCain's campaign released a one-minute Web ad seeking to burnish his maverick image -- with testimonials from prominent Democrats. The montage includes Hillary Rodham Clinton's scathing assessment of Obama's readiness to be president: "I know Sen.

Barack Obama clearly wasn't amused when John McCain's campaign tried to turn his big crowd advantage into a liability -- casting him as the "biggest celebrity in the world" in an ad that interspersed images of the Democratic candidate speaking to thousands in Berlin with paparazzi-style shots of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. McCain's campaign was trying to persuade voters that Obama wasn't ready for the presidency.