Trying to blunt a national tide of Republican enthusiasm, Democratic candidates rallied voters across Southern California on Sunday, arguing that GOP victories here would put the state in the hands of those who care only for the wealthy.
Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom — Democratic nominees for governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor respectively — toured African American churches in the morning. Later, they and other Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, held a pep rally in Van Nuys.
"It's an important election," Brown told an audience at Greater Zion church in Compton. "It's an important election for … the whole Democratic Party. We're not perfect. We've got a lot of problems in this state, we've got a huge budget gap, but there's a lot of things we can do if we all pull together."
Without mentioning Republican opponent Meg Whitman by name, the attorney general repeatedly contrasted her voting record with the sacrifices made by African Americans to secure their right to vote.
"I'm running against somebody who almost never voted. And I've lived here all my life and I've voted in every election, and I've cared to make this beautiful state much better," Brown declared at City of Refuge church in Gardena. "We can't just be for the most powerful. We have to be for everybody."
A Los Angeles Times poll published Sunday showed Brown leading Whitman and Boxer running ahead of Republican nominee Carly Fiorina. Newsom, the San Francisco mayor, was slightly ahead of GOP nominee Abel Maldonado, and Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, was narrowly behind her Republican counterpart, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley.
Democrats remain nervous that a Republican surge could swamp even the best-positioned candidates.
At the Van Nuys rally, Boxer took off after Fiorina's support for offshore oil drilling and her endorsement by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She also dismissed Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, as a failed executive who had outsourced American jobs.
"I'm not interested in creating jobs in India," said Boxer, a three-term incumbent. "I want to create them in Indio, Irvine and Inglewood."
Fiorina has insisted that layoffs and outsourcing while she was at H-P were necessary to keep the company afloat. She criticized Boxer this weekend as a has-been. On Nov. 2, she said, the nation would "look to California and say 'Wow.... The voters of California decided that 28 years of Barbara Boxer was enough.' "
Whitman had no public events on Sunday, but on Saturday she appealed to Asian American constituencies at stops in San Jose, Los Angeles' Koreatown and City of Industry.
"We have a choice between a career politician and a career problem solver," Whitman told several hundred supporters in Industry. "And do we have some problems that need to be solved, and I will solve them."
As she spoke to reporters after the event, Whitman recounted a Saturday Los Angeles Times article that showed city employees receiving substantial overtime while Brown was mayor of Oakland.
"What you saw was gross fiscal negligence," she said. "No one was home, no one was in charge, and this is the kind of fiscal mismanagement that we cannot stand in the state of California."
Brown on Sunday said the pay was required, and noted that Oakland's biggest employee union refused to endorse him for mayor.
"I think Whitman, because she hasn't been in government and doesn't vote, doesn't understand," Brown said.
Cathleen.decker@latimes.com
phil.willon@latimes.com
Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott, center, and his wife Ann, right, wave to supporters before Scott's victory speech, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Credit: AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) 
Lucy Madison is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts