Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

A campaign ad for Pat Toomey, who is running for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, equates incumbant Joe Sestak with Nancy Pelosi and features imagery of San Francisco

The commercial could be mistaken for a low-budget San Francisco tourism advertisement, with images of Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge and AT&T Park.

In fact, it's an attack ad from the Pennsylvania Senate race.

As the commercial unfolds, the face of the Democratic candidate, Joe Sestak, is superimposed over the city's landmarks to portray Sestak, a retired Navy admiral who lives in the same Pennsylvania county where he grew up, as “just another San Francisco liberal.”

Sestak, a congressman, earned this distinction by voting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi “100 percent of the time,” according to the ad for his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey.

“That might fly in San Francisco,” the ad concludes, “but it's too extreme in Pennsylvania.”

In the waning days of a highly charged election season, Republicans near and far are united against a common opponent: San Francisco. In ads and stump speeches, the city is repeatedly flogged as a symbol of the kind of out-of-step liberalism that Republicans vow to banish if they wrest control of Congress from Ms. Pelosi and the Democrats.

Nationally, the Republican National Committee has begun a “Fire Pelosi 2010 Bus Tour,” and ads tying Democrats to San Francisco have proliferated. In Georgia, a conservative Democrat seeking to distance himself from Pelosi is running a commercial featuring gyrating hippies and warning: “Georgia is a long way from San Francisco.”

In California, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, a candidate for lieutenant governor, and District Attorney Kamala Harris, a candidate for attorney general, are both fending off attacks related to their hometown.

Newsom's opponent, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, has repeatedly ridiculed San Francisco policies like a ban on plastic bags as out of touch and overreaching. Harris's opponent, Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles district attorney, has been subtler, employing images of San Francisco while skewering Harris in television ads.

The political message makers are not playing hunches. A Field poll last summer asked voters if they would be more or less likely to vote for a politician if they knew that politician was from the San Francisco Bay Area. Outside the Bay Area, 22 percent said they would be less likely to vote for the San Francisco politician while only 5 percent said they would be more likely, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll.

“San Francisco is viewed, in some ways correctly, as being different than the rest of the state,” DiCamillo said. “In a close race, specifically in the A.G.'s race, where it seems where the candidates are from is one of the primary distinctions between the two, it could make a difference.”

Political observers say the subtext of running against San Francisco is about cultural values. The message is an effort to galvanize the Republican base and appeal to moderate Democrats.

Dick Polman, a political columnist with The Philadelphia Inquirer, said the message of the Toomey ad was unspoken but obvious, tying San Francisco to a gay lifestyle that makes conservatives uncomfortable.

Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

Steve Cooley's campaign ad for California Attorney General features rival Kamala Harris and images of San Francisco

“Nancy Pelosi is from San Francisco, and we all know who lives in San Francisco. The ad doesn't have to show Castro Street,” Polman said. “In Pennsylvania, that message would be aimed at cultural conservatives, many of them registered Democrats, who generally view Democratic social permissiveness and government spending as part of a continuum.”

Local leaders, of course, reject the portrayals.

“The San Francisco Bay Area offers a kind of liberal freedom that allows people to come here without their being handicapped by the stereotypes that have blocked them elsewhere,” said Art Agnos, who served as mayor from 1988 to 1992. “It's ironic that politicians or their advisers are trying to stereotype San Francisco because it defies stereotypes.”

The anti-San Francisco strategy has been especially visible in the race for lieutenant governor.

Maldonado has taken a rhetorical sledgehammer to the city -- and its mayor, Newsom -- to rally the Republicans' conservative base.

As he took the stage at the California Republican Convention in August, Maldonado showed an eight-minute video calling San Francisco the “Nanny of the Month,” a reference to the city's policies restricting bottled water in city offices, banning soda from vending machines on city property and forbidding plastic bags at supermarkets.

The video repeated at least a dozen times a clip of Newsom declaring that same-sex marriage would become widespread “whether you like it or not” and showed images of Mr. Newsom's decree honoring Colt Studios, a gay pornographer.

“While Gavin was cheering for gay porn, there were 11 homicides in the first 15 days of 2007,” the video said.

Maldonado has since clarified that it is Newsom's “policies, not the city” that he despises.

“It's a wonderful city with a lot of charm,” he said in a recent interview.

But Maldonado, a successful vegetable and berry farmer from the Central Coast, chafed at what he said were Mr. Newsom's elitist urban attitude and out-of-touch policies.

“I think he looks down at me, and that's somewhat sad,” Maldonado said. “He goes to L.A. He stays in San Francisco or pops into Sacramento. But he won't go to San Diego, Stockton, Bakersfield. He won't go to real California, to where blue-collar, hard-working people are. He knows his policies won't work there.”

Newsom argued that San Francisco's efforts to legalize same-sex marriage and to ban plastic bags and his promotion of green technology are ahead of their time.

“History usually judges us quite well,” Newsom said. “This is one of the most innovative, dynamic, desired places to live in the world by people. Conservatives should look to San Francisco for example.”

Cooley has taken a more restrained approach in his contest against Harris.

His first television ad showed her face above the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge rising before her, as a man's voice described Harris's “errors and misjudgments.”

“My opponent is trying to use very vague basic-level tactics to distract from the issues,” Harris said. “There are certainly stereotypes that people would like to attach to what it means to be from San Francisco, and I reject them.”

Analysts say the attacks may be effective against a candidate like Harris, who has been criticized for opposing the death penalty.

“In the end, voters are most comfortable with someone who appears to be in the middle,” said Larry Gerston, a political science professor at San Jose State University. “One wonders if she's going to be tarred and feathered just because she's the D.A. in San Francisco.”

At a ceremony in San Francisco last week, Pelosi said she would not “take the bait” in response to the San Francisco bashing.

“Instead of saying how they're going to run the country, they want to try and talk about San Francisco,” she said.

Pelosi added that she was proud of the city named for St. Francis of Assisi, and then quoted him: “Where there is hatred, may we bring love, and where there is despair, may we bring hope.”

Here are some of the campaign ads that feature San Francisco: