Although this is a blog about crime and not politics, anyone who cares about fighting crime must necessarily care about the election of people who set policies related to crime. We will therefore note crime-related news about the November election here.

Maryland Gov.. John Wagner of the Washington Post reports on crime issues coming to the fore in the Maryland Governor's race.

Cal AG. The California AG candidates' debate before the San Francisco Chroncle editorial board yesterday is available here. The debate was somewhat disappointing in that an insufficient portion of the time was spent on the AG's primary job -- criminal cases -- while time was wasted on utterly irrelevant topics. Whatever one thinks of stem cell research, the Attorney General has little if anything to do with it. The death penalty discussion was superficial. What we really want to know from both candidates is what, if anything, they are going to do to break the logjam.

Mr. Brown accused Mr. Poochigian of quoting him misleadingly and out of context regarding his talk-show statements in the wake of the execution of the "freeway killer" William Bonin. We found this link to the full text of Mr. Brown's remarks through Capital Defense Weekly, so it is safe to assume this is not some right-wing distortion of what he said. Judge for yourself which candidate's characterization of the remarks more accurately captures the essence.