World Series fever infiltrates Northern California congressional ads

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With the home team San Francisco Giants in the World Series, the conservative Club for Growth Action is stepping up attacks on endangered California Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton) with a radio ad that sounds like a baseball broadcast.

Opening to the familiar musical baseball ‘charge’ cry, an announcer says: ‘Low and outside, ball four, Congressman Jerry McNerney just walked in the tying run.’ ‘He’s really thrown some bad pitches,’ says another announcer. ‘Yes, ever since McNerney voted for the Wall Street bailout and the failed trillion-dollars stimulus bills he’s really been struggling,’ says the first announcer. The ad concludes with an announcer saying, ‘Politics is a lot like baseball, except that the wrong player at the wrong time can cost you your job ... It’s time to send someone new with fresh ideas back to Washington.’

In one of the few hotly contested California House races, the two-term McNerney faces a challenge from Republican David Harmer, an attorney and son of a former lieutenant governor. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been running its own TV ad attacking the Republican candidate as a ‘bailed-out bank executive.’

-- Richard Simon in Washington