Since 1983, long-bearded Texas rockers ZZ Top have been singing that "every girl crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man."

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is singing a different tune: If you want to be a sharp-dressed candidate, you better pay for the threads yourself.

The FEC, in a ruling Thursday, determined that four congressional candidates "appear to have violated" a federal election rule barring the use of campaign funds to purchase clothing. But because all of the candidates had reimbursed their campaign treasuries for the expenditures, the cases were closed without further action taken.

The ruling came in response to a complaint filed last December by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a political watchdog group.

Judy Chu, the California Democrat who won a House seat in a Los Angeles-area special election Tuesday, has had a long and varied career in local and state politics.

But she also has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and taught psychology at the community college level for 20 years.

Hmmm..... a psychologist who also knows how to add AND subtract.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa decided to end his prospective 2010 bid for governor of California with some flair, revealing his decision in a nationally televised interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. But the opt-out by the Democratic mayor of the nation's second most-populous city -- and California's largest -- raises a question: Why would anybody WANT to govern California at this especially difficult point in its history?

The state's long-booming economy was already slowing when the national recession sent it into a tailspin. This has escalated a massive state budget shortfall, which in turn has pitted the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature against Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Governator -- as "Terminator" movie star Schwarzenegger once dubbed himself -- has discovered during his relatively short political career that it's lot easier to save the world as a cinematic action hero than it is to break legislative gridlock in Sacramento.