With a massive transit workers' strike shutting down city buses, and fuel prices soaring in a place where a car is a necessity, not a great deal of attention is being paid to politics in Los Angeles.
A poll last week by the Field group showed Californians are paying more attention to the Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio Senate campaign in New York than they are to their own Senate race. (US Senator Diane Feinstein is leading her opponent Tom Campbell by a solid 20 per cent margin.)
However, George W. Bush is determined to change all that in the next three weeks.
Last week two polls were released showing that the Texas Governor has made inroads into Vice-President Al Gore's lead in the state. The Zogby poll, commissioned by the Republican Party, showed Mr Gore leading 45 per cent to 39 per cent for Bush, with Green Party candidate Ralph Nader getting 6 per cent.
The Field poll showed Mr Gore with a 13-point advantage, a figure that been static since August.
Whichever poll one believes, the narrowed results were enough to convince Republicans that Mr Bush has a decent chance of overtaking Mr Gore in a state where he was considered unbeatable. The Bush campaign announced it would begin to spend $1.5 million a week on television advertising in the state.
About $1 million of that will be spent in the Los Angeles television market, and some $600,000 will be spent in other regions of the state, with the exception of the San Francisco Bay area, where even the Zogby poll shows Mr Bush losing to Mr Gore by a margin of 56 to 27 points.
In addition, Mr Bush is expected to visit the state at least one more time before November 7th during a two-day swing through the west.
"The Bush camp is committed to the state. We are not going to throw in the towel," said Congressman David Dreir, the campaign's state co-chairman.
The state Republican Party official, Jim Brulte, speaking to reporters in San Francsico, added: "Californians have an open mind. So far the Gore camp in California has been very, very arrogant. They have presumed the votes would simply fall into their lap like an apple that's overly ripe. We believe this race has been in single digits for the last three or four weeks. Governor Bush is getting a post-debate bump. We are serious about carrying California."
Certainly the Republicans will be spending serious money. They have about $7 million left to spend on the Get Out the Vote effort. They have set up 238 field offices around the state, compared to just 77 set up by the Democrats.
Jennifer Backus, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party in California, told the Los Angeles Times that Republicans are "throwing money away in California". Ms Backus said she is not worried about being outspent by the Republicans.
"Republicans always have more money than Democrats. We win elections because we use old-fashioned shoe leather as opposed to gobs and gobs of cash."
The Democrats are also counting on a large get out the vote operation co-ordinated by labour unions, who almost unanimously have endorsed Mr Gore.
Democratic state chairman, Art Torres, speculated that the Republicans' strategy of spending vast amounts of money of television ads is more about trying to address certain Congressional races which are being hard fought. A sweep by Democrats in Congessional races here could shift the balance of power in Congress.
"They're sending out a letter, signed by former First Lady Nancy Reagan, which says, `I'm writing to you because Ron can't'," Mr Torres told the Los Angeles Times. "If that's where they're putting their resources, God bless 'em."
Many political pros believe that Mr Bush should concentrate his resources on the key battleground states where the race is closer, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.