Television producer (“Alias,” “Lost”) and movie director (“Cloverfield,” “Star Trek”) J.J. Abrams of Pacific Palisades gave $25,000 Tuesday to state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial exploratory committee. His wife, actress Katie McGrath, gave another $25,000.

A day earlier, producer Kathleen Kennedy – who with director Steven Spielberg and her husband Frank Marshall has made films such as the “Jurassic Park” series and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” – gave Brown’s campaign $5,000.

And former Warner Bros. and CBS executive Robert Daly, now president of investment consulting firm Rulemaker Inc., gave $25,000 to Brown’s campaign, also Monday.

Other big-ticket, non-Hollywood contributions to Brown’s campaign in the past week include $50,000 on Monday from Los Angeles billionaire businessman Stewart Resnick and his wife, Lynda; $38,000 last Friday from Los Angeles real estate development mogul Curtis Tamkin, plus $5,000 on Monday from his son, Comerica Entertainment Group corporate banker Curtis Tamkin Jr.; and $25,000 on Monday from designer Diane Von Furstenberg plus $10,000 the same day from her son, Arrow Capital Management chief investment officer Alex Von Furstenberg.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has withdrawn from the governor’s race.

Here is Newsom’s statement sent a few minutes ago:

It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from the race for governor of California.

With a young family and responsibilities at city hall, I have found it impossible to commit the time required to complete this effort the way it needs to – and should be – done.

This is not an easy decision. But it is one made with the best intentions for my wife, my daughter, the residents of the city and county of San Francisco, and California Democrats.

When I embarked on this campaign in April, my goal was to engage thousands and thousands of Californians dedicated to reforming our broken system and bringing change to Sacramento.

I would like to thank those supporters, volunteers, and donors who have worked so hard on my behalf. I have been humbled by their support and am indebted to their efforts. They represent the spirit of change and determination essential to putting California back on the right track.

I will continue to fight for change and the causes and issues for which I care deeply – universal health care, a cleaner environment, and a green economy for our families, better education for our children, and, of course, equal rights under the law for all citizens.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman will visit privately with a group of about 15 Contra Costa business and taxpayer group leaders on Oct. 21 as part of her campaign listening tour.

“She wants to come and have a talk about the issues that we care about,” said Contra Costa Taxpayers Association director Kris Hunt. “We are happy to sit down with any of the candidates and talk about the issues.”

The meeting location has not yet been determined.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign today launched the first video ad of the 2010 Democratic primary race, a 60-second spot urging a constitutional convention to overhaul how the state governs itself.

“It’s time for a new direction in California. For too long, Californians have been victim to a broken system that leads to stalemate year in and year out,” Newsom said in his news release. “It’s time for real reform in Sacramento, reform that will put our state back on the path to opportunity and prosperity. A constitutional convention is the first step toward this larger goal.”

It could be an effective message for a campaign predicated on representing youthful vigor and change, setting itself apart from that of Attorney General and former two-term governor Jerry Brown – out with the old, in with the new, and all that. It even avoids mentioning Brown’s name. Then again, Newsom risks sending a message to voters that he’s not prepared to govern unless California radically reworks Sacramento’s rules; whether or not our system is inherently broken, voters may or may not latch onto the “I can be a great governor if…” meme.

The campaign says this spot is the first in a series to be released over the next two months, reaching more than half a million California Democratic primary voters via email, Facebook, and Twitter. And it’s to be followed by an online policy “wiki” incorporating voters’ input, as well as online organizing drive.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman rolled out her campaign’s county-by-county grassroots leaders today, a team she’ll hope will mobilize campaign volunteers and voters.

“It’s clear enthusiasm is growing, and I am honored to have the support of these grassroots leaders from across the state,” Whitman said in her news release. “Grassroots activities are critical to winning this election and reinvigorating the Republican Party. This group will help create momentum for our campaign and working together, I’m confident we can rebuild California.”

The Bay Area Region Chair will be California Republican Assembly activist Leonard Lacayo of San Francisco, while each county will have its own chair, including Alameda businesswoman and former Congressional and state Senate candidate Claudia Bermudez for Alameda County; Ann Jordan for Contra Costa County; Kim Burrill for Santa Clara County; former Assembly candidate Ramiro Maldonado for San Mateo County; entertainment producer Cesar Ascarrunz for San Francisco; and GOP county committeewoman Carolyn Patrick for Marin County. In the Central Valley Region, Metro Exhibitions founder and American Event Rentals CEO Steve Anthony will be the San Joaquin County chair.

Democrats apparently hope to kill two Republican gubnernatorial birds with one gender-roles stone by calling attention to California candidate Meg Whitman’s trip to the East Coast later this week to stump with Virginia candidate Bob McDonnell.

Americans United for Change, a liberal, labor-backed organization generally supportive of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party, issued a news release today noting Whitman’s trip, entitled “What Is Meg Whitman Thinking?”

McDonnell for weeks has been trying to parry criticisms based on his 1989 evangelical-school Master’s degree thesis, in which he described working women and feminists as “detrimental” to the family; said government policy should favor married couples over “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators;” and described as “illogical” a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

Whitman is now taking heat for explaining her lack of a voting record by saying she had been “focused on raising a family, on my husband’s career, and we moved many, many times.” Democrats seem to hope this explanation will prove as potentially unpopular with voting and working women as McDonnell’s thesis.

“If Bob McDonnell’s extreme views had won the day – Meg Whitman would have never been the CEO of a major company, would not have had access to child care and would never have been in the position she is in today to run for public office,” Americans United for Change deputy executive director Caren Benjamin wrote in today’s e-mail, which went first to her group’s allied organizations and then to the media. “What is Meg Whitman thinking campaigning with a man whose views would bar women from the work place and who as an elected official has fought against issues of important to women like equal pay for equal work? Why would Meg Whitman campaign for a far right wing ideologue and misogynist like Bob McDonnell? Is she not ready for prime time? Or does she just no [sic] know the facts?”

“Meg Whitman is being brought to Virginia by Bob McDonnell for one reason – it’s his desperate attempt to recover from the revelations of his thesis and his real extreme views on women that have resulted in near disaster for his campaign,” Benjamin continued, asking people to call Whitman’s campaign and urge her to cancel the appearance with McDonnell.

Save your nickel: Whitman’s not going after all.

“Our campaign has a scheduling conflict,” Whitman campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds told me short ago.

But before Americans United for Change starts doing a victory dance, it should check with CNN, which now reports the visit’s plug was pulled last week:

McDonnell’s campaign said the fundraiser, to be held at a private home in northern Virginia, was canceled last week because “scheduling reasons prevented it from happening.” John Backus, a businessman who was scheduled to host the gathering and has known Whitman for years, said the fundraiser had to be postponed because his wife is giving birth. He said Whitman wouldn’t be attending the re-scheduled event.

UPDATE @ 4:22 P.M.: Americans United for Change delcares victory, anyway. Just in from Caren Benjamin:

“The plan was for Meg Whitman to breeze into Virginia to quietly raise a lot of money for someone who believes working women are “detrimental” to families. It’s interesting that the fundraiser was canceled after being spotlighted publicly and that Whitman won’t be attending the re-scheduled event. Maybe Whitman realized how untenable it would have been to help someone who believes someone like her had no business in the business world.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Campbell rolled out his plan for health-care reform in California today, assuming there’ll not be significant, far-reaching federal reform.

It’s a 14-page plan and, given health-care reform’s complexities, I’ll not do it the disservice of immediately trying to explain every point of it here – go read it yourself.

In brief, it involves getting waivers from the federal government so California can spend its Medicaid and SCHIP funding to set up a system in which each region of the state – counties or clusters of counties – invites private health insurers and providers to bid on the right to cover all those below a certain income level (including current MediCal and Healthy Families recipients) plus all those who’ve been rejected by private insurers due to pre-existing conditions. The government will set the dollar amount of the five-year contract, and each bidder will explain what it would provide for that amount (above certain minimum criteria). The winning contractor would be able to sue anyone who’s financially capable of buying insurance but chose not to and then seeks emergency care.

Campbell also wants medical malpractice tort reform, which he said would decrease costs associated with “defensive medicine” – doctors covering their own butts by ordering unneeded, costly tests.

And he called for repeal of the federal antitrust exemption for insurance companies, and passage of federal laws to permit the interstate sale of insurance policies. Sure enough, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., today introduced a bill that would eliminate this 60-year-old exemption, which a broad exemption from antitrust scrutiny of price fixing and price setting by insurance companies.

As for national reform, Campbell told reporters today, he wants to see “the least intrusion as possible to achieve the purposes … Let’s just be targeted, you don’t need the big approach.” Besides repealing the antitrust exemption and enacting tort reform, he suggests requiring all insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and including the cost of COBRA continuation in unemployment insurance for people between jobs.

Now comes the serious money. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. on Friday contributed $1.5 million to its somewhat euphemistically named “Californians to Protect Our Right to Vote,” doubling the $1.5 million with which it already had seeded the committee in July and August. As reported here at the times of the earlier contributions, the “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act” that this committee is pushing would require local governments to obtain the approval of two-thirds of their voters before providing electricity to new customers or expanding such service to new territories if any public funds or bonds are involved, or before providing electricity through a community choice program if any public funds or bonds are involved. Critics say PG&E is playing on populist themes in order to block local governments from abandoning the utility giant in favor of power contracts with smaller, greener energy producers – a movement that’s been gaining steam in recent years. The proponents have until Dec. 21 to gather the 694,354 signatures needed to place this on the ballot next year.

Other sizeable chunks of change contributed in recent days include $25,900 from Oracle heiress and real estate agent Nicola Miner of San Francisco to Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign; $25,900 from former FTD Group CEO Michael Soenen of Chicago to Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign; $25,000 from the Mercury Trust (apparently controlled by financier Saul Fox) in Foster City to Tom Campbell’s gubernatorial campaign; and $10,000 each to Whitman’s campaign from venture capitalist and former Motorola Chairman and CEO Christopher Galvin of Winnetka, Ill., and from retired investment banker James Love of Healdsburg, all last Thursday.

The California Republican Party saw an influx of big-time corporate bucks yesterday, with notable contributions including $100,000 from Walmart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, Ark.; $100,000 from Chevron Corp. of San Ramon; $25,000 from AT&T Inc. and its affiliates in San Francisco; $25,000 from the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians in Temecula; $20,000 from Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles; $15,000 from the California Association of Health Facilities PAC in Sacramento; and $12,500 from The Hartford of Hartford, Conn.

Other sizeable contributions this week included $25,000 yesterday from Rancho Santa Fe homemaker Katherine Lukianov to Republican Steve Poizner’s gubernatorial campaign; $20,000 yesterday from billionaire heir and venture capitalist John Pritzker of San Francisco plus $18,650 from his wife, Lisa Pritzker, to Democrat Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign; and $15,900 on Tuesday from Chicago media mogul Newsweb Corp. owner Fred Eychaner to Newsom’s campaign.

I had coffee this morning with Garry South, wartime consigliere to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign. We covered a lot of ground, engaged in a little back-and-forth smack-talk (devil’s advocacy on my part, of course); South was – ahem – a forceful advocate for his client, as always.

Clearly, the gloves are indeed coming off: Watch in coming weeks for a lot more young-vs.-old, forward-vs.-backward framing of Newsom’s race against presumptive Democratic primary rival state Attorney General Jerry Brown, with an exhaustive and non-complimentary review of Brown’s former gubernatorial tenure.

Among the questions I asked South was how having a ballot measure to repeal Proposition 8’s same-sex marriage ban on the November 2010 would impact the gubernatorial race. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he said it would have “no real impact on the dynamic of the race.”

Remember, Newsom is identified with the issue of gay marriage perhaps more than any other politician in America , given his 2004 order that San Francisco start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and his ardent advocacy for same-sex marriage rights ever since.

South said both Newsom and Brown will be viewed as same-sex marriage supporters who opposed Proposition 8 and support its repeal. Both the likely possible Republican nominees, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman (sorry, Tom Campbell), would oppose its repeal, yet both are otherwise somewhat moderate on other social issues, he said – they’re pro-choice, pro-stem-cell research, environmentally savvy and support domestic partnership laws.

And neither Poizner nor Whitman wants to incur the wrath of the state’s decline-to-state voters, who not only account for 20 percent of California’s registered voters – a vital swing vote in the gubernatorial general election – but who also tended to oppose Proposition 8, according to polls before and after last November’s election.

I asked whether the church-going Democrats and decline-to-state voters who helped Proposition 8 prevail would be turned off by Newsom’s candidacy, but South argued most of them would split their votes, voting for Newsom and against Proposition 8’s repeal. He said he challenges anyone to demonstrate a case in which a ballot measure impacted a simultaneous gubernatorial election, other than Pete Wilson riding Proposition 187 to a come-from-behind re-election victory over Kathleen Brown in 1994.

South said Newsom’s principled stand on same-sex marriage is what catapulted him onto the political A-list, his ticket into the 2010 race, and he won’t have any need to run from it.

All that said, I can’t believe we’d get out of next year’s general-election season without seeing a revival of the “whether you like it or not” video clip, red meat for social conservatives across party lines. I guess we’ll see.