UPDATED BELOW

As you probably know, Rep. Jackie Speier (pictured above at a town hall meeting last year in Montara) is pondering a bid for California attorney general after a poll showed her having an advantage over other Democratic candidates, and with the candidate filing period opening Feb. 15, a decision is expected soon.

So which way is she going to go? It’s clear she’s fed up with Washington and the Senate in particular. Being a junior member of the House at a time of partisan gridlock has been difficult for her, especially when financial reform proposals she’s worked hard to pass are being tossed aside in the Senate, where Sen. Chris Dodd is in the process of caving in to Republican demands.

On the other hand, there is still a slim chance to enact historic health care reform legislation as well as contribute to a moment of great importance for Democrats, who have as good a shot as they’re going to get to enact significant policies on climate change and other issues. San Mateo County residents need leadership from Washington as far as stimulating the economy and creating jobs. And doesn’t every newbie in Washington have to pay his or her dues before rising in influence and seniority?

But Speier, 59, doesn’t have unlimited time left in public office. So she has to figure out how best to use that time, and maybe spending five years working her way up the ladder in the House isn’t it. And perhaps Capitol Hill really is so “dysfunctional,” as she put it, and the Senate is so corrupt and useless, that there’s no legitimate hope of winning important legislative battles or making a difference there.

If she runs for attorney general and wins, Speier will be able to spend much more time with her husband and two children — Jackson, 21, and Stephanie, 15. The commute to and from Washington has been a strain for her, newly hired spokesman Nathan Ballard confirmed this week. As attorney general, she’d also be able to focus on many of the consumer protection issues that are so important to her.

The hunch here is that Speier will run for AG. Maybe she’ll decide she has unfinished business in Washington. Perhaps her family could talk her into sticking with it, if that’s what they feel. But if we had to guess, we’d say her clear distaste for what’s going on in D.C., particularly the sausage-making that takes place in the Senate, combined with the need to be closer to her family, will tip the scales in favor of leaving the House and heading back to Sacramento.

UPDATE: Wrong! Speier released a statement today saying she will not run for attorney general.

“I am thankful that so many supporters came forward to urge me to run for statewide office, but after talking it over with my family, I have decided to stay in Congress,” Speier said in a statement. “I am convinced it is the right thing to do for my family, and I believe I can best serve my constituents by remaining in Congress and working hard on consumer protection, financial reform, jobs, and health care.”

So don’t ever listen to us again.

Eshoo anticipates that, besides shoring up the faltering economy, Obama’s priorities are likely to include a health care plan, a “safe and honorable” withdrawal from Iraq, energy security and climate change.

Those last two items fall under the auspices of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which Eshoo joined in 1995.

“We will certainly have our hands full,” she said, “and I look forward to it.”

Eshoo said Obama’s victory on Election Day is still sinking in. She’s been struck, talking to young people, including her children and nieces and nephews, by how hopeful and enthusiastic they are about Obama and what he means for the future of the country.

The downer of the election for Eshoo, who is close friends with San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, was the success of Proposition 8. Gordon, who paid a visit to Eshoo’s home on Election Night, married his partner over the summer.

Eshoo said she was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome. She said she received several robocalls in favor of Prop. 8 before Election Day that were filled with “hysteria and misinformation.”

But Eshoo said that, while older voters may have been swayed by the “Yes on 8″ campaign, she’s optimistic that younger generations of Californians will eventually compel the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“I think down the road, as more and more younger voters come to voting age, that this, too, will change, because ‘No on 8′ was not the least bit menacing to young people,” she said.

Before Barack Obama’s election win recedes too far in the rearview mirror, here’s a couple bits of local reaction that didn’t make it into the paper.

In the photo above, Karen Cunningham, sporting a Barack Obama T-shirt, was captured celebrating the Democratic Party’s historic night at the victory party for Rep. Jackie Speier in Burlingame.

Meanwhile, Bill Stewart, 70, took in the election results at an NAACP-organized party at B Street Billiards in downtown San Mateo.

Stewart, a computer consultant and member of the Foster City Association of Black Residents, grew up in Memphis, Tenn., where he participated in sit-ins during the civil rights movement.

He moved to California following graduate school to work for the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. Because of his race, he was not able to rent an apartment in Palo Alto.

On Tuesday night, Stewart said Obama’s victory struck him as “almost unbelievable.”

Stewart recalled living in the segregated South during college: “You were not allowed to try on clothes in certain stores … you couldn’t go to a lunch counter, buy a sandwich and sit down.”

“It’s a transition to a new day,” he said of the election. “What we need to do now is start working for economic parity for African-Americans.”

McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have made a major issue of Ayers recently on the campaign trail, but McCain didn’t bring up the subject during the second debate, despite the urging of many Republicans.

Afterward, Obama and running mate Joe Biden subtly and then not-so-subtly taunted McCain for lacking the gumption to bring up the association to Obama’s face. McCain practically boiled with rage when Charles Gibson of ABC News repeated what Obama had said.

Now that McCain’s been provoked, will he talk about Ayers? Perhaps moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS, whose June interview with Wes Clark has made him a member of Talking Points Memo’s “Tire Swing” club, will bring it up on his own.

Either way, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, isn’t particularly concerned. When we spoke with her last week, she said the country’s desperate economic condition has rendered the Ayers issue irrelevant. People just aren’t interested, she said.

“I think it’s meaningless,” said Eshoo (pictured above). “I don’t think the American people are in the mood for the day-in and day-out junk of campaigns. They are worried sick about their own state of affairs and that the country is practically on its knees right now.”

“In the context of the stock market dropping,” she continued, “do you think that anyone in this country — even if they know who Bill Ayers is — cares?”

Some people clearly do care. But there’s mounting evidence that the attacks on Barack Obama’s character just aren’t working.

As for why McCain hasn’t brought it up in a debate, Eshoo thinks “he’s embarrassed to — he knows that in a candidate forum he would embarrass himself.”

McCain has had occasion to look feel embarassed recently, though for other reasons.

But we think that embarassment won’t stop him from referring to Ayers tonight. It’s desperation mode for the McCain campaign. The only reason he won’t bring it up is if his campaign has decided it would do more harm than good, politically.

Didn’t have time to post this Insider item here on Friday. Since it previewed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s appearance Sunday at a GOP fundraiser at the Hyatt Regency SFO in Burlingame, we’ll run it in a shorter, modified form with some additional comments thrown in.

First, a couple things we noticed from MediaNews (and San Jose Mercury News) reporter Mary Ann Ostrom’s account of the event.

According to Ostrom, Siebel Systems founder Tom Siebel introduced Palin to the crowd by saying, in part, “Sarah Palin carries the flag of outrage … for each of us who cries out, ‘We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.’”

Whuh? What are Tom and these people he’s referring to mad about? The last eight years of leadership under President George W. Bush? The Congress that’s been led by a Republican majority for six out of the past eight years? (And effectively filibustered by a Republican minority the past two years, on those occasions when Congressional Democrats weren’t kowtowing to the president’s demands.)

Tom and Sarah’s being mad about the status quo in Washington makes about as much sense as John McCain’s declaring that Obama is “angry,” when McCain lately has looked like he’s about to pop at the seams.

Palin reportedly got a good laugh during the fundraiser with a line about Tina Fey, who’s been parodying her recently on “Saturday Night Live,” saying she’s giving Tina Fey good “job security.”

Except not really, because Tina Fey has been playing her on “SNL,” a show for which she no longer works. In a broad sense, you could argue that Fey’s crushing portrayals of Palin have elevated her already brilliant career to new heights. But it’s not like she was scuffling. She’s won a slew of Emmys and Golden Globes for her new show, “30 Rock,” though TV ratings remain low. It’s a minor point, but we can’t resist the urge not to give Palin credit for anything.

Before the event, we offered some suggestions for Palin supporters who wanted to bring signs: “Moose. It’s what’s for dinner.” “Hockey moms do it without protection.” “Peninsulans 4 empty catchphrases.” “Seriously, we’re having moose. Dig in.”

Below are a few examples of what people, pro- and anti-Palin alike, actually came up with.

On a separate note, we pointed out following Thursday’s vice presidential debate between Palin and Sen. Joe Biden that you could tell the McCain camp tried hard to come up with a zinger for Palin that would resonate with viewers of Thursday’s debate and dominate the postdebate spin sessions.

Their best shot appeared to be “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” (Palin seemed to telegraph her team’s intentions when she immediately went on to quote Ronald Reagan’s famous quip to Jimmy Carter, “There you go again.”)

But Palin’s attempt at lighthearted chops-busting fell with a bit of thud, partly because of her hurried delivery and partly due to the fact that it was followed, in a way that seemed overdone, by the Reagan line and “doggone it.” It felt shoehorned into the discussion.

The Insider got the impression of someone who’s got a really good card but, fearing she won’t get another good chance to play it, plays it too early, in a situation that doesn’t quite call for it.

The problem with trying to rehearse lines like that is they are, at their best, unrehearsed. In a 1989 interview with Jim Lehrer, Reagan claimed he came up with his iconic takedown of Carter on the spot.

“Saturday Night Live” took note of her scriptoquips as well. When Fey, as Palin, walks out and shakes Joe Biden’s hand, she says, “Hey, can I call you Joe? Okay, ’cause I’ve practiced a couple zingers where i call you Joe.”

(That was probably the best skit of the night, but “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals” gave it some good competition.)

In fairness to Palin, she held up pretty well against Biden, though her winking, aw-shucks delivery — as a substitute for actual information — wore thin by the end. Some (Republicans) would even say she won the debate, while others (everybody else) would disagree. But most people would at least agree that it was closely contested.

For those who follow politics closely, it feels like a long, long time has passed since Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stepped onto the national stage Aug. 29 as Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

After several days of negative media attention, the storm dissipated last Wednesday when she gave a sharp, snarky and smoothly delivered speech that electrified the party faithful at the Republican National Convention, dispelling some doubts about her addition to the ticket.

The long-term effects of her entry into the race remain unclear. Will the shine of her speech fade as voters learn more about her history in Alaska, from Troopergate to tax hikes? Will McCain’s fourth-quarter substitution of family values for national security boost or destroy his chance for an upset? (The answer so far is: boost.)

Local Republican Greg Conlon, who is running for a House seat against Jackie Speier, was inside St. Paul, Minn.’s Xcel Energy Center Sept. 3 when Wasilla Mooseburger breathed life into what had been a low-wattage convention. It was “spontaneous combustion when Palin hit the floor,” Conlon recalled on Friday.

“I just thought that she’s everything that we could possibly want in a vice president,” said Conlon. “She’s got so much energy and excitement that she’s going to motivate the troops at all levels.”

As for Palin’s utter lack of foreign policy experience, Conlin said that, if anything were to happen to McCain, who is 72, Palin will be surrounded by experienced advisors.

Unfortunately, some of McCain’s advisers are even more hawkish and trigger-happy than the current president’s, so the Insider doesn’t consider that a comforting prospect.

Conlon said McCain’s speech last Thursday was moving. Did the McCain campaign lay it on a bit thick with the multiple recountings of the senator’s prisoner-of-war experience? Conlon doesn’t think so, because it served to illustrate his propensity to “put country first.”

“He’s demonstrated many times that he’s his own man,” Conlon said, “and he came across (Thursday) as his own man and willing to do what he thinks is right for the country at all costs to himself.”

Democrats have argued that McCain’s selection of Palin actually subordinates the interests of the country to his own political interests.

We asked Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, who in the Aug. 30 edition of the Insider greeted the Palin announcement with bafflement and disdain, for her take.

“She was chosen to nail down the right-wing base of the Republican Party, which John McCain was absolutely desperate for, and that he has done,” Eshoo said Friday.

“Another goal was to change the narrative in the campaign,” Eshoo continued, “from talking about the war and the economy to abortion and the cultural issues of the base of the Republican Party.”

Eshoo said she expects the McCain campaign to send Palin out “to appeal to non-college grads, blue-collar people, because that’s who she appeals to.”

Though it’s clear now that Palin’s political skills should not be underestimated, Eshoo appears confident that a McCain-Palin ticket will not be able to woo enough independent voters to win in November.

“I believe that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States,” Eshoo said. “In my view it’s a matter of the margin.”

“I still believe that people do not vote for No. 2 on the ticket, they vote for No. 1,” she added.

(The Insider does not currently share Eshoo’s optimism about the race. The fake scandal about pigs and lipstick that’s dominated cable news broadcasts the last couple days has us concerned about the McCain campaign’s ability to drive news coverage with bogus stories and the Obama campaign’s seeming inability to take the initiative.)

Eshoo noted that McCain’s acceptance speech lacked policy specifics. He didn’t lay out a plan for Iraq, even though the war had been, until recently, the central focus of his campaign.

McCain’s speech, she noted dryly, will not be “quoted by historians.”

“He just said, ‘Here I am, a war hero, and I served my country well,’” Eshoo said.

The race will come down to slogans versus substance, Eshoo said, and Democrats will be wise to focus heavily on the issues, particularly the economy, since McCain and Palin seem to have ceded that territory.

Local Democratic insider Joe Cotchett isn’t taking the McCain-Palin ticket lightly. And he figures Palin will be used to target voters in rural parts of key swing states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida.

Rather than ignore Palin, as some have suggested, Cotchett thinks Obama is right to go after her on policy grounds, including her false claim about opposing the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Cotchett said he believes the outcome of the presidential campaign will be determined by a simple equation. In one hand place the number of white people who, even if they don’t hold racist views, can’t bring themselves to vote for a black man, whether or not they’d admit it to pollsters or even themselves. (See the Bradley effect.) In the other hand put the number of new voters that the Obama campaign mobilizes and registers to vote.

If the number in the first hand is more than the second, McCain wins. If the number in the second hand is higher than the first, Obama wins.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., speaking Wednesday in Hayward and rocking a longer-than-usual haircut.

Sen. Barbara Boxer has released a statement panning Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech last night. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a more favorable response.) Here ’tis:

“Last night, Sarah Palin proved that she can throw a punch — one packed with sarcasm to divert attention from her lack of experience.

“Palin didn’t even attempt to make the case to the American people that she is ready to be Vice President or President, should that become necessary. Sarah Palin is a great candidate for the far right, but after examining her slim record in office, I cannot imagine mainstream Americans would support a Vice Presidential nominee with such extreme views.

“Palin would criminalize abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and does not believe insurance companies should cover birth control.

“Palin remains unconvinced that human activity is the cause of global warming, even though the world’s leading scientists unequivocally agree that it is.

“Palin has a one-dimensional answer to our energy crisis — the Exxon policy of giving more leases to Big Oil. She has no concern about our thriving coastal, tourism-based economy and no requirement that they drill in the millions of acres where they already hold undeveloped leases. Sarah Palin is a candidate who is extreme, not mainstream.

“In addition, Palin is under investigation by her state legislature for abusing her executive power and when she was mayor, she left the people of Wasilla in debt.

“The choice of Sarah Palin by John McCain shows a real lack of judgment.”

Meanwhile, Matt Drudge continues to try to do his best as America’s media “tone setter” to tilt the momentum of the campaign narrative back in McCain and Palin’s favor.

A lot has happened since we spoke with Rep. Anna Eshoo and San Mateo County supervisor Rich Gordon last Friday about the announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain’s pick for the job of vice president.

There’s been a media storm about Palin’s credentials, McCain’s vetting process and the news that the governor’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Then the storm broke last night with Palin’s powerful, if rather snide, speech before the Republican National Convention, which sent a jolt of energy through the party and caused chants of “Drill, baby, drill!” (the Republicans sure have a sophisticated take on energy policy, don’t they?) to bounce off the walls of St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.

Now a new media cycle begins, and the Democrats aren’t likely to underestimate Palin any longer. We’ll be getting a fresh perspective from local Democrats and Republicans in the next couple days. In the meantime, here, from Saturday’s print edition of the Insider, is what Eshoo and Gordon had to say when the pick was first made public

Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, was just as thunderstruck as many Americans by McCain’s choice of Palin.

Using words like “bizarre” and “startling,” Eshoo said McCain’s surprise pick showed that the GOP is a “panicked party” right now. It also reminded her of Sen. Barack Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

“He hit McCain squarely on temperament and choices,” said Eshoo, who is pictured below, “and you see today the baffling, baffling choice in terms of his judgment for the person who would be a heartbeat from the Oval Office.”

Republicans swarmed cable news broadcasts last Friday, spinning the choice of Palin as a bold stroke that restores McCain’s faded maverick image, endears him to fundamentalist voters, appeals to women and blunts Obama’s power as a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.

But the McCain camp has yet to come up with a compelling argument for Palin in the key area of national security, an issue that’s been the center of gravity for his campaign. (The arguments that Palin is in charge of the Alaska National Guard, except when it’s deployed overseas, and that Alaska is close to Russia haven’t cut it.)

With the country facing, in McCain’s view, multiple international crises that threaten America’s existence, from Islamic terrorists to Iran and Russia’s recent muscle-flexing in Georgia, he now asks voters to accept the premise that a two-year governor in a sparsely populated state, someone whose knowledge of foreign affairs appears to be paper-thin, is ready to become commander in chief if McCain, 72, should fall ill.

“In plain English, I think it’s a disaster for them,” Eshoo said last week.

Gordon, who joined Eshoo in Denver last week as a member of the California delegation, said last Friday that Palin was “a strange pick.”

“If he thinks that that pick is going to draw women who supported Hillary Clinton, I think he’s terribly wrong and made a huge mistake,” said Gordon, pictured above getting a hug from Eshoo at his wedding shower in July.

Women won’t just vote for someone because they’re female, he said. They’ll look at the issues, including Palin’s strong pro-life stance.

The Insider tried to reach several Republicans for their perspective on Friday, but we were unsuccessful.

Catherine Brinkman, a Republican who is running for state Assembly in District 19, did not get back to us.

Our attempt to reach Karen King, chair of the county Republican Party, was a window into the state of the local GOP. Although the headquarters lists a separate fax line, the main number for the party office gave off a fax signal every time we tried it Friday afternoon.

When we called the fax number, just for kicks, we got a voice message for a local photography business. And an e-mail to the address listed on the Web site was kicked back as undeliverable.

Greg Conlon, who is challenging Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, for a seat in Congress, was not able to respond to us in time for the print edition, but we got an e-mail from him Saturday.

“I believe it is great to have a young woman on the ticket who has to also be considered her own woman,” Conlon said of Palin, “because she won as a woman when (Alaska) was going through a Republican scandal, that she was not part of, and won as someone who was willing to take on the oil companies for the oil spill damages.”

Palin also “will make it difficult for the Hillary Clinton supporters to not vote for a women who is up to taking on the establishment and winning,” Conlon added.

John Kerry spoke at a delegates breakfast Wednesday morning and tore the roof off with a speech that was very much like the one he delivered later that day at the Pepsi Center. Speier said the speech reinforced her opinion that John McCain is an “extremist,” from foreign policy to abortion, and not a maverick.

At a lunch hosted by Sen. Barbara Boxer later that day and put on by none another than local Democratic Party insider Joe Cotchett, California’s junior senator regaled the crowd with stories of her interactions with McCain when she first got to Washington in 1992.

Boxer recalled seeing flashes of McCain’s anger on more than one occasion, said Speier, who like Barack Obama himself Thursday night questioned whether McCain has the temperament to be a steady commander in chief.

“The question I would ask is, do we really want someone like that holding on to the red phone?” said Speier.

Speier wanted to see her fellow Democrats go on the offensive against McCain during the convention. Rep. Anna Eshoo had a different approach, warning that bashing McCain too aggressively could produce a backlash.

“By the time the TVs are off with the closing of the convention, (voters) need to be left with the impression that it was thoughtful,” Eshoo said. “This is not about (a) bumper sticker mentality. That’s what the Republicans like to do, but that’s not enough. It’s about the future of our country.”

Nevertheless, Eshoo predicted Wednesday, by the end of the convention, “The lines will have been drawn.”

We’re trying to check in with both Speier and Eshoo today to see if the final 24 hours of the convention lived up to their expectations.

We talked Wednesday afternoon to both Reps. Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo, who shared their thoughts on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech Tuesday night, among other subjects.

What else did they talk about? Speier mentioned some interesting remarks that Sen. Barbara Boxer made about John McCain, while Eshoo offered up a vision for a successful finish to the Democratic National Convention that keeps McCain bashing to a minimum.

Check back here Thursday morning for more on those subject and few others.