Political Campaigns

As recently as two months ago, David R. Hernandez said, he didn't even know what Facebook was. Today, he uses the popular Internet social-networking site to help spread the word about his steeply uphill campaign for Los Angeles mayor in Tuesday's municipal primary.

The race for Los Angeles city attorney has involved an increasingly bitter exchange of charges between the two candidates. City Councilman Jack Weiss has hammered at his opponent, defense lawyer Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, for refusing to disclose the names of his law firm's clients. Trutanich has fired back by repeatedly questioning Weiss' ethics.

The hotly contested race to replace Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss in a Westside-to-Encino district could be summed up in three words: insider versus outsider. An array of City Hall players have lined up behind former State Assemblyman Paul Koretz as he seeks the edge over neighborhood council member David T. Vahedi in Tuesday's election for the 5th District. Eleven of 15 council members have endorsed Koretz. Veteran lobbyist Harvey Englander opened his home for a fundraiser.

The voter uprising against Sacramento on Tuesday showed that "CA needs wholesale change," Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco wrote on Facebook. "Ready to Buck the System?" asked the Democratic candidate for governor. "Donate 5 bucks to change CA," he wrote. "Goal is 500 people to give 5 bucks to create an army for change."

Occasionally, like a trail of water finding a path through stone, honesty seeps into a political event. Proof came a few days ago at an Orange County gathering for Meg Whitman's campaign for governor. Mary Bono Mack, the Palm Springs congresswoman, braced the crowd with the odds for the EBay billionaire, who is making her first bid for elective office in the 2010 election. "This is an uphill battle, as you know," Mack told the crowd, whose presidential candidate was routed here six months ago.

Terry McAuliffe, Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, had a rare morning off from campaigning before he was to be at the Viva Vienna Memorial Day street festival, so he spent it throwing out old bottles of salad dressing. It started when a jar of Kansas City barbecue sauce caught his eye, and it occurred to him that he might have picked that up when he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which was a lot longer ago than the shelf life of barbecue sauce.

In the final weeks before the special election to fill the San Gabriel Valley-based 32nd Congressional District seat, Judy Chu, the heavily favored Democrat, is confident enough to have moved into smaller campaign headquarters. Her Republican opponent and cousin by marriage, Betty Tom Chu, determined to make a strong bid despite long odds, has opened a campaign office for the first time since entering the race April 6. And the Libertarian in the three-way runoff, Christopher M.

Despite insisting just a few months ago that they wanted to go back to the ballot in 2010 to try to amend the state Constitution to allow same-sex marriage, many of the state's gay-rights groups now say that is too soon. They worry about raising the millions of dollars needed to run a campaign and suggest that the job of changing enough voters' minds on same-sex marriage might take longer than 12 months. "Going back to the ballot . . .

Los Angeles County prosecutors have launched a grand jury probe into who was behind a barrage of recorded phone messages they believe were aimed at undermining voter support for the incumbent during last year's campaign for district attorney. The investigation has raised allegations that a dirty-tricks campaign targeted Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley in the final days before he won a historic third term.

President Theodore Roosevelt campaigned as a trust-busting reformer, but was embarrassed by revelations that his 1904 campaign had received secret contributions from New York insurance companies. At his urging, Congress passed a law to keep corporate money out of political races. Now, that century-old ban stands in danger of being overturned by the Supreme Court's conservative majority, on the basis of an equally venerable principle: free speech in politics. The justices signaled the prospect of a profound shift in election law by scheduling an unusual special argument for Sept.