TIPOFF : SWING VOTERS, NOT POTHOLDERS, LAST POLL HOPE.

Byline: RICK ORLOV

OK, so it's the final days of the primary campaign and only one important question has gone unanswered: Whatever happened to the potholders?

Mailboxes are getting filled with slate cards - but no much-needed potholders - in a last desperate effort to sway voters.

The last hope for many is that the state's first blanket primary will bring in enough independent voters and crossover voters to provide some surprises.

The big impact of the blanket primary could occur in the big-spending races for governor and U.S. Senate.

With Attorney General Dan Lungren expected to easily win the GOP nomination, Democrats Al Checchi and Jane Harman are hoping to win some Republican support to try to stop the runaway campaign of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis.

In the Senate race, Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer likewise is expected to win an easy nomination. Some Democrats are talking about voting for GOP businessman Darrell Issa, in the belief she would have an easier time against him since he is far more conservative than GOP Treasurer Matt Fong.

State Sen. Charles Calderon, D-Los Angeles, is learning the problems of a statewide campaign as he seeks the post of attorney general.

There has been grumbling from his colleagues that he is absent too often from his legislative duties in Sacramento, even more than his other colleagues.

It's gotten so bad that Sen. Patrick Johnston, D-Stockton, joked that his appropriations committee would take up Calderon's bills only if he is in attendance.

Maybe it's the jet fumes they have to breathe - like the people who live near LAX - but there are more changes coming at the Los Angeles Airport Commission.

Ed Manning, who has been on the five-member panel for two years, has told Mayor Richard Riordan he will be stepping down this summer - the third commissioner to leave in three weeks.

Manning is going to work for a Sacramento lobbyist firm, which is a pretty good alibi for leaving the commission right after Riordan's clumsy handling of the ouster of Dan Garcia as commission president also led to the departure of mayoral ally Bill Dahl.

``This was too good an opportunity to pass up,'' said Manning of his new job with the firm of Kahl-Pownell Cos. ``I'll miss the Airport Commission. It's been a great opportunity despite all the recent ups and downs.''

For Manning, it is a homecoming of sorts. He worked as counsel to former Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy.

No word from the Mayor's Office on who he will name as a successor, but there is expected to be pressure to name a resident of the area to the commission.

Democrats are scrambling to cover up a mistake in one of the more obscure races this year, the 4th District Board of Equalization race.

A slate mailing saying the party was endorsing acting board member John Chiang was in error, the party says.

``The party has a policy this year of not endorsing in statewide and Board of Equalization races,'' the statement said.

Chiang is one of six Democrats in the race.

MEDIA WATCH: Things are getting very touchy over at the Los Angeles Times these days.

Item No. 1: The paper sent a large delegation to New York last week to accept its Pulitzer Prize. The problem is the delegation included an inordinately large share of editors over the reporters who worked on the story. That prompted reporters to compare it to the Los Angeles Unified School District, which sent administrators to the Academic Decathlon, forcing teacher-coaches to pay their own way.

Item No. 2: A big flap has started over an internal memo written by an editor, Tim Rutten, blasting Mike Downey's warm-hearted column last week on ailing former Mayor Sam Yorty. In part, the memo said the column ``was so breathtakingly wrong, it's hard to know what to say about it.''

Staffers still are so upset with Downey's promotion from sports columnist to news columnist that they have given him a nickname - Y250K, in reference to his salary.