Let the games begin
The Prowler reveals Democrats Get Dirty:

GRAY AREAS
Across the country, Gov. Gray Davis's opposition research team -- the one that worked overtime during the last election to dig up dirt on former Los Angeles mayor Dick Riordan and opponent Bill Simon -- is at it again. Davis is said by one state Democratic insider to have budgeted more than $100,000 to dig up dirt on Rep. Darrel Issa, the multimillionaire who is helping to finance the recall effort against Davis, and who says he will run for the governor's job if the recall drive succeeds. Davis has also sent his minions forth to begin digging up dirt on actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We've already seen the stuff on Issa coming out. If you want to get the flavor hop on over to http://www.stoptherecall.com/, a labor union sponsored site that has teasers like "Darrell Issa... An Extremist!" and "Darrell Issa... A Car Thief?". But web sites aren't the preferred venue:

Davis has been using his favorite news outfit to spread his dirt on Issa. Both negative reports about Issa's distant past -- that he and his brother were suspected of filing a false car theft report more than 20 years ago and that Issa faced gun charges more than 30 years ago -- appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. "They just handed everything over to them," says the state Democratic Party operative. "That's how it works. I doubt the paper even had to do any of its own reporting. Davis's people are pretty thorough."

What liberal bias?

And while we are on the subject, the Prowler also reveals:

THE HOWARD DEAN PROJECT
The presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry may be saying that it doesn't care about the new momentum of Howie Dean's team, but it sure isn't acting like it. Kerry's folks have begun intensive opposition research on Dean, sending staff to Vermont to pull together whatever dirt they can find out about not only Dean but also his wife, who continues to work as a physician in the state.

"It's early, but not too early to start taking him down a notch," says a Kerry staffer. "We've gone head to head with Dean in debates, we've tried to shout them down and shut them up, and they are still hanging around. We're going on the offensive."
...
The Kerry staffer says that Dean's recent appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" gave them pause. "He was avoiding having to talk about anything substantive from his background. There has to be stuff there. We're looking. If he's going to be around for the long haul, we might as well be ready."

And here it comes:

Mis-Dean-meanors

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean may have a little scandal in his past.
...
Asked whether he'd done anything like that when he was young, Dean said: "I take the Fifth. Was I ever arrested? No. But I'm not going to catalog my misdeeds, of which there were a significant number."

Ruh oh! Maybe he means this - Howard Dean: I Beat Booze:

In an interview with New York magazine in February, Dean's Yale University buddy Ralph Dawson was asked about the Democrat rising star's student hobbies.

"Well, he drank," Dawson blurted out.

Dean later explained: "I quit drinking when I got married in 1981. I didn’t think I handled liquor well."

Then the candidate revealed that sometimes his drinking caused trouble. "Actually, I drank beer. I tended to misbehave. I had a hangover the next day," Dean told New York magazine.

The up-and-coming candidate won't say what kind of misbehavior he indulged in, adding only, "What’s funny when you’re 18 isn’t funny when you’re 30, so I just quit."

He insists that he was never arrested for drunk driving and that there is no alcoholism in his family.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for any tut-tutting from the usual whiners about President Bush.