East vs. West

The bicoastal, political bad-wrap battle is in full swing. New York Times Magazine's Mark Leibovich made the first in a piece profiling the candidates in the race to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as head of dysfunctional state - the story is entitled "Who Can Possibly Govern California?"

The Los Angeles Times strikes back with "New York takes legislative gridlock to next level" by Mark Barabak and Richard Simon, which starts: "As California lawmakers stay locked in partisan gridlock, residents might take small solace in one fact: There is a legislative body even more divided, more hapless and more dysfunctional than the one in Sacramento."