Observations from Thursday night’s Tracy Press candidates’ forums:

We didn’t know that Poet Christian Elementary School was hosting WWE Wrestling the same night we hosted the 11th Congressional District candidates forum. The admirers of incumbent Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and challenger Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, were hyped.

The McNerney crowd was too excited at times. They were rude and bombastic with boos, catcalls and laughter as Pombo, the seven-term congressman, spoke. At times, he erred by responding to their personal attacks.

Meanwhile, McNerney fed on his crowd and was aggressive in accusing Pombo of being dishonest, corrupt and unable to get things done. Pombo refuted all these charges, citing the fact the House Resources Committee that he chairs got more legislation out this session than anyone else, and it was bipartisan.

McNerney reviewed the national issues and Pombo’s too, but he never finished the deal by telling us what he would do in Congress, other than get U.S. troops out of Iraq. But then Pombo also talked about past and present accomplishments, nothing with a future tense.

• Holy family values! Cathleen Galgiani is a closet Republican. If you attended the Assembly candidates’ forum, you’d be stumped to label her as a liberal Democrat, although she cut her political teeth as an aide with valley Democratic statesmen like John Garamendi and Patrick Johnston.

The Stockton Democrat is campaigning like a Republican on fiscal, crime and immigration issues. She’s opposed to new taxes and more government regulation. “If you touch a child once, you go to prison,” she declared on punishing sexual predators. Galgiani is even endorsed by the California Chamber of Commerce.

However, she did show a liberal streak when she declared she is against Proposition 85, the initiative that requires parental notification before a minor has an abortion.

That was one of the crevices that her opponent, Tracy Republican Gerry Machado, tried to wedge through. He hammered Galgiani with “family values” and “parental rights,” adding that as a father of two daughters he must, not just should, know if they were considering abortions.

Machado used the “i” word, as in “illegal,” a lot, too. He doesn’t want illegal immigrants to have driver’s licenses or state funds to attend college. He’s for the 700-mile fence (so is Galgiani), only he wants the state to secure it (Galgiani wants the feds to patrol it).

Machado’s problem during the next month is to keep tacking to the right politically as Galgiani muscles him out of the middle. Going too far right could lead to a tag of being an extremist, but it’s a chance he must take to win on Nov. 7.