You have to hand it to Steve Hilton. He's taken a page from the Spencer Pratt playbook and released a banger of a commercial that will hit voters right between the eyes. 

Check it out:

I mention Pratt for an obvious reason: despite his inability to finish first or second, he created enough buzz in a city now choosing between two radical socialist candidates to make Republicans dream they had a real chance to win. 

California has been lost to Republicans for two decades, and nobody really expected that a Republican would actually be in the running for Mayor of Los Angeles. Yet Pratt built a social media campaign that galvanized people and helped people dream again. 

With Election Day a week away, the two-years-long race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom is winding to a predictable end. 

Polls released throughout the summer and fall show Democrat and former Attorney General Xavier Becerra maintains a commanding double-digit lead over Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton since they finished in the top two spots in the June primary.

The latest, conducted by Emerson College from Oct. 17 to 19, places Becerra 27 percentage points ahead: 60% of likely voters supported him compared to 33% for Hilton. When pressed, nearly two-thirds of the small share of undecided voters in the survey leaned toward Becerra. 

In Sacramento, policy advocates have for weeks been scrambling for a chance to meet with the presumptive next governor.

If the results hold as expected, it won’t be for a lack of trying on Hilton’s part. 

The GOP candidate, a first-timer in California politics, has tried everything and more to boost his candidacy: barnstorming the state, flooding social media with provocative ads, using AI to portray himself as a gladiator in Becerra’s colosseum and texting selfie videos from Los Angeles’ Skid Row. 

And frankly, even with a Democrat candidate whose IQ is barely above the temperature in an operating room, the Democrats will continue to have a lock on the governor's mansion. Becerra's commanding lead — now nearing 30 percent shows how lost California is not only to Republicans but to anyone who thinks government should serve people. Becerra is to Newsom what Biden was to Obama: a pale imitation you can barely see the outline of. 

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He's corrupt, inept, genuinely stupid, and was even despised within the Biden administration as an embarrassment. Yet he will be the next governor of California. He will probably have an aide whose job it is to wipe the drool off his face. 

As you can see from the Pratt and Hilton campaigns, the problem here isn't the Republicans' inability to recruit political talent; it's the Democrat Party's entrenched nature, which seems as secure in its elections as Karen Bass' beloved Fidel Castro was. 

In Minnesota, which is light purple, we've had a heck of a time recruiting great candidates, although Tafoya has made her race competitive, with a great assist from Tim Walz (can you believe he almost became Vice President?!). If we had candidates this good, we might have had better shots at winning, despite Somali fraudulent voting. 

Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, California looks lost to us. Until the Democrats siphon enough wealth that the tech bros rebel, and then for a while longer, California will remain Deep Blue. 

But at least the Republicans are putting up a fight, and also giving us great commercials.