Why?
Political parties aren’t enshrined in stone. I’ve always thought there was something unfair in the way that the two major parties have easier ballot access than small parties or independent candidates.
For a brief moment, I read this as “Steve Harvey.”
Schiff doesn’t want to campaign against Porter, I think he’s afraid of her (you know, a strong, forthright woman might be seen as a good heir for Feinstein as she used to be). And anyway, there is a PAC called Fairshake (which is anything but) financed by cryptocurrency billionaires, to do his dirty work for him, by making sure Porter didn’t make the cut for the November election. You should see some of their ads – dirty, lying, innuendo with no citations except “fellow Democrats who worked with her for years” but no names of course. I couldn’t find any of them on YouTube, but they played a lot on California TV channels.
For me, I can’t stand Schiff, only because of that constant half-smile that is on his face no matter what he is talking about. Reminds me of a hell of a lot of right-wingers. Not spectacularly logical of me, but I liked Porter and was sorry to see this kind of attack ad on her.
Edited to add: I have seen no evidence of Schiff’s fingerprints on those attack ads, in case there was an unintentional implication in the above.
From Garvey’s website:
“Steve’s campaign is focused on quality-of-life issues, public safety, and education.”
Well, that’s all I need to know. 
“In baseball, it’s not about the individual; it’s about the team.”
Unfortunately for Steve, being a relative moderate makes him a pariah in the current Republican clubhouse.
For, or against?
Multiple pregnant women. I think he had three pregnant at the same time. The divorce was messy and stupid. Garvey also impressed me as rather stupid and hasn’t done anything since to make me think otherwise. Plus, he’s 75. Why run now?
That’s implausible deniability. The print ads literally had Schiff’s name printed on them. The TV ads may have as well, somewhere in the fine print–I wasn’t paying very close attention. It’s not like this was some scheme put out by a dark-money PAC. And no one thinks it’s any less cynical because the ads put on the reverse pretense.
All that said, you may not be wrong in that the Schiff campaign thought it would present some deniability. It’s just that it would have been stupid for them to have thought that.
Why would Schiff want plausible deniability when these ads all say things that he actually believes? He DOES believe that Garvey is too conservative for California, and that he would work to pass the Trump agenda. That’s the crux of Schiff’s strategy here, as well as several other instances last cycle of Democrats running advertising “attacking” the more extreme candidate in Republican primaries. Because they wanted Republican primary voters to think that “this is the guy Democrats are afraid of” so that they’d be more likely to vote for the extreme candidate. When really the goal is to have the less electable Republican advance to the general election. And it worked in several races last time.
Is what Schiff did cynical? Sure. But I’m not sure how bent out of shape I’m supposed to get over a Democratic Senate candidate running attack ads against a Republican opponent.
Wasn’t Garvey also a judge on The Gong Show?
Hey just wanna say great Adrian Belew album.
Anyway, back to subject at hand.
Yeah, it’s not reverse psychology: He’s putting out ads that say exactly what he means. Those ads will end up benefiting him in a less direct way than usual, but they’re still honest ads.
That’s how perverse politics has gotten.
Schiff launches an attack ad campaign which accurately portrays a very sincerely-intended picture of an opposite-party opponent, laying out the case for why that opponent shouldn’t be elected.
And simultaneously, every talking point is a dog whistle to guarantee the opposition party’s constituency will absolutely eat it up and thrust that candidate into the primary.
Own goal, right? “Way to break it, hero.”
Except that by enhancing the chances of that opposition party candidate of being in the primary, Schiff actually kneecaps his only real danger.
Deep. And also deeply cyincal.
If not now, when? 
I guess, but not much time for a learning curve.
You haven’t met Mr Garvey I take it.
Learning was never his strong suit and now he’s taken up Republicanism. Which is about as anti-learning as it’s possible to be.
To an audience that he knows will interpret the ads in exactly the opposite way.
This is kindergarden-level logic. I didn’t hit my brother, I was just swinging my arms and he ran right into them! You don’t get to claim honesty when you say something that may be literally true but has exactly the opposite effect (both intended and in practice).
No one comes out of that race looking good. Schiff especially looks bad for starting the whole mess of spending to boost a Republican, but Porter did the same with Eric Early, another no-chance R that she boosted in an attempt to draw R votes away from Garvey.
Newsom kind of screwed over Barbara Lee when he appointed a placeholder to fill Feinstein’s seat instead of the logical choice of Lee, she also treated the appointment like it was her right and didn’t really do much to justify it (she didn’t play the politics game too well).
And then there’s Garvey, who didn’t air a single ad of his own and has refused to describe any policies or beliefs at all. “When asked, during a debate for the Senate seat, why he got into the race if he doesn’t know anything about the issues, Garvey responded: ‘I have said that I’m new, I needed to explore California, I needed to talk to the people.’” And he never got any more clear than that.
Now that results are in, it looks like there was a mini red wave in CA, with Rs doing much better in down-ticket races than expected. Schiff is being blamed for elevating R turnout while depressing D turnout with a transparently cynical and selfish approach to politics.
Here’s a good explanation of the race, written before the vote.
Leading to a popular proliferation of bumper stickers saying
Who did this guy think he was - Nick Cannon?
As a diehard Cub fan, I have loathed Steve Garvey ever since the 1984 NL playoffs.