Up north, the San Diego Chargers are the Oceanside Charmers.

As the stadium sweepstakes play out behind closed doors, the Chargers have turned on the charm offensive.

We haven't seen much of the media-shy Spanoses themselves, but the PR team shows moves as silky as L.T.'s.

With all-star counsel (and former Clinton team player) Mark Fabiani carrying the ball on key downs, the Chargers are coolly calming the waters during the run-up to the fateful moment when it's announced in which city the football team will try to pitch a billion-dollar, state-of-the-NFL-art stadium.

Don Juan couldn't prepare a conquest more smoothly.

The Chargers' game plan - its X's and O'side, if you will - is a study in suave simplicity. Here's the playbook.

• Never downplay the mammoth challenges involved in building a stadium in a coastal city with an ingrained inferiority complex, especially in relation to archrival Carlsbad.
• Readily admit it's going to take a perfect plan and spot-on execution to overcome skyscraping hurdles such as traffic, financing and demonstrable economic benefit for Oceanside. City leaders will have to see the wisdom. Concede that, at the end of the day, the deal might not pencil out. Then again, it might; otherwise, why are we here?
• Suggest there is no reason for doubting Thomases to get fired up at this early stage of the game. Encourage soothing dialogue with anyone suffering from angst over the possibility of an Oceanside stadium.
• Repeatedly remind citizens of the following: If - if! if! - the Chargers believe they can build a stadium on city-owned parkland, voters can say no right up to the moment of consummation. Nothing happens without a yes! yes! yes! from willing voters.
• Dismiss with a weary shrug the fear that the Chargers are "using" Oceanside to leverage a better deal with San Diego or Chula Vista or Anaheim or Los Angeles or wherever.
• Emphasize the money the Chargers are spending to study the tight terrain and the traffic, as well as the market for upscale office space adjacent to a stadium on "Goat Hill," the aptly nicknamed municipal golf course north of Oceanside Boulevard.
• Make sure everyone understands that the city of San Diego is a political and financial disaster. Building a new stadium at the Q, it's a virtual (remember to add that crucial qualifier!) impossibility. Stress that Oceanside batted its eyes at the Chargers first.
• Don't miss any opportunity to take a shot at Michael Aguirre, the lawsuit-happy San Diego city attorney whom we, the Chargers, detest on principle.

Finally, smile. Remember, it's only a game!

Despite the Chargers' best efforts at pacifying the natives, a small - but feverishly critical - gang of locals has created a Web site committed to rebuffing the Chargers' tentative advances.

Under their logo - "Go Away Chargers" - the unidentified authors sound their warning:

"We are a group of concerned citizens, sports fans, neighbors and fiscal conservatives who oppose building a Chargers Stadium in Oceanside.

"Please join us in opposing this financial Field of Schemes and the huge giveaway of millions of dollars' worth of public lands and subsidies.

"We love Oceanside and choose to live here because we love our beaches, downtown, the relaxed, coastal way of life and the most perfect weather in the world. Adding this massive stadium and all the problems that will come with it will severely impact our entire community."

I called Nadine Scott, an activist who, just to make me jealous, told me she was enjoying a glass of Chardonnay by her pool.

I complimented Scott on what I assumed to be her brainchild at http://goawaychargers.netrootz.com. She didn't bite, assuring me my assumption was wrong.

I wondered why the site was registered in her name.

In a transition worthy of a congresswoman, Scott explained that she merely entered the site's name on godaddy.com, an Internet domain registry. Others, Scott said, were responsible for the site's content, which predicts apocalyptic doom if an NFL stadium is built in Oceanside.

"But I'm thrilled to death someone else took the reins" on the stadium, she said.

Scott defended the desire of the site's backers to remain anonymous.

"Every time you speak out, you get detractors," she said.
When I talked with attorney David O'Connell, the group's spokesman, he said he was "taken aback" by the "vitriol" of those who view the "Go Away Chargers" campaign as malign NIMBYism.

Gee, no diamond in sight and the family is already fighting over the suitor.

But imagine if - if! if! - Moby Dick breaches in North County. What if the Chargers do choose Oceanside as their happy hitting ground?

That's when the NFL team will pull off the soft kid gloves, hire brass-knuckle consultants - sadly, the late Jack Orr, North County's politico emeritus, will be working celestial precincts - and prepare to roll to victory in the November 2008 election.

Until the Chargers opt for Plan O, however, Oceanside is waiting in the wings, wondering what it will do if - if! if! - Prince Charming rides up the coast to offer a ring with one hand and, with the other, the blueprints to his new castle.

And then, to steal a silver coin from columnist Rick Reilly, it will be Oceanside's task to decide if it's Xanadu or Xanadont.