Today's political potpurri...

WHO'S FOR 'EM, WHO'S AGAINST 'EM: Remember back when you were in junior high and your mother was trying to give you advice on choosing which kids to hang out with? Mine, at least, always advised, "You can tell a person by who their friends are."

In the spirit of such maternal wisdom, let me recommend the nonpartisan website of the group Next 10. Its California Choices.org site includes a page on the ballot propositions with perhaps the most useful information of all for a voter to assess -- who's for them and who's against them. The endorsements page lists dozens of business and labor groups, newspapers, political parties and nonprofts in an easy-to-read chart that reveals who is supporting and opposing what this fall.

If you can tell a person by who their friends are, the same must be true of ballot propositions.

IS BENNETT GETTING WORRIED?: Supervisor Steve Bennett, facing a spirited challenge from former county fire chief Bob Roper, this week sent out a last-minute appeal to supporters that suggests he may be experiencing some unease about the campaign.

Here's the opening:

"I have not sent out an email blast to my full email database this fall. This will be my only request.

"As most of you in my district are seeing in your mailbox, a new special interest PAC, primarily funded by those who profit from urban sprawl, has started the usual barrage of attack mail against me."

Bennett has always been extraordinarily cautious politically, and has never been one to allow an attack to go unanswered. So in that regard, it's in character for him to respond with a sense of urgency to a coordinated campaign against him. At the same time, it does seem awfully late in the game for a candidate, even one who's been able to raise all the money the county ordinance allows, to be sending out a first email blast to all his supporters.

SPEAKING OF LATE IN THE GAME: Early this year a new political group in California, modeled after House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy's national "Young Gun" program for GOP congressional candidates, announced it would establish a "Trailblazers" program to identify and support promising GOP legislative candidates.

Just 10 days before the election, it announced yesterday that one Assembly candidate had finally enrolled to become a "Pathfinder." The newcomer is Scott Wilk, in Simi Valley's 38th Assembly District.

In its press release, the group said Wilk "has met specific fundraising and organizational goals designed for individual campaigns." Better now than on Nov. 7.

IN A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS: I swear, I've never once watched a YouTube video involving kittens, and I tend to hit the delete button whenever someone emails me one of those Internet memes that waste so many hours of American productivity. But, in a moment of weakness, and out of a sense of professional responsibility, I did watch this. And now I suppose I'm compounding that transgression by sharing it.

Here's my excuse for sharing it: I was a moderator at the debate from which the footage of Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon was shot, and I am a big fan of the 2002 movie "Catch Me If You Can" with Christopher Walken, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.