Watching City Hall #242, (12-1-03) “Kill the sheep and get back to town!” (A contributor to the column) I really did have to go out of town to watch a couple of sheep so’s they wouldn’t get wasted by a couple of dogs. … I hardly got out of the action though. Let me tell you what’s happened since I last wrote on Thanksgiving. Newsom cardboard crumbles in rain You almost wanna feel sorry for Gavin Newsom about now. I mean, if it’s not one damned thing, it’s another. … Losing is one thing. Hell, I’ve spent most of my life losing as have you. But, we don’t have the experience of losing 5 or 10 million dollars of someone else’s money. … At least I don’t. … What do you do when you’ve squandered that kind of money building a juggernaut and some guy peddles up on a bicycle and kicks your ass? What do you do when you get into the final week and your own internal polls show you’re losing by double digits? … Well, first you start blighting the City with your campaign signs. … Now, this might not be a big thing to you, but it is to most of the people in my life. … Friends, family, other reporters … we all marveled at the fact that the streets had been kept free of all but a few Harris and Hallinan signs. Matt had come out early and announced that he considered ads on posts were “visual blight” and that his campaign wouldn’t be fucking up the view. … Until this weekend, the Newsom camp went along with the idea. … Not anymore, buddy boy! Late at night … in the rain It had to pick this weekend to start raining! … That’s what the Newsom sign people were saying. Here they were, out in the middle of the night, breaking Newsom’s pledge not to blight the landscape … and it comes pouring down rain on them. … Then, as if that isn’t enough, lots of the signs they’re hanging on polls in the middle of the night … yeah, here they are … hanging these signs in the middle of the night and here comes this rogue DPW crew following being them, taking them down! … Where the hell do they get off? … Hey, the word I’m getting here is that the Newsom people are putting the signs up that are way too big and hung too high, then simply agreeing to pay the fines for the more prominent placement. … Ooooh, boy … does that suck or what? … Except that they’re idiots and don’t realize that papering the City with their signs will blow back into their faces like a stream of piss into a Norther. … Funny thing, they did it when Al Gore’s plane was circling for a landing. Al Gore – Environmentalist or Party Whore? Tomorrow (Tuesday, Dec. 2nd) … tomorrow, old Al Gore will be in town. Y’all remember Al? He’s the guy who served as Clinton’s Vice President for 8 years, then wrote a book touting himself as a great environmentalist. … Well, Al is coming into town tomorrow to do a kissy/huggy thing with Gavin Newsom. … Al doesn’t seem to be bothered that the Sierra Club gave Newsom a grade of ‘D’ on environmental issues and gave Matt Gonzalez an A+. … Nope, that doesn’t bother Al at all. Probably all of the Newsom signs blotting the landscape won’t bother him either. … Naw, what Al has his eyes on is the Newsom money. … Yep, Al is a party whore. A slut to the Democratic Machine. … Al’s environmental values are for sale. … Al’s for sale. … Now, don’t get me wrong. Now, don’t get me wrong You listening? … I don’t care if Al Gore sells out. I think that I speak on behalf of pretty much every person in the world when I say that. … So, one of the funnier things that came out of the campaign presses this week was that someone wanted to disrupt an Al Gore/Gavin Newsom rally? … Shit, that’s like breaking into a funeral home and having tea with the ‘guests’. … Not many takers for that one. … Predictions? … Al Gore couldn’t draw a crowd in San Francisco if he stripped naked and set himself on fire in front of City Hall. … Al will arrive, gather a small folder of checks from Don Fisher and Warren Hellman and Walter Shorenstein. Then, Al Gore will leave. He will leave with less respect and integrity than he had when he arrived. And, he will have alienated an entire new generation of progressive Democrats. Bits and Pieces of the Getty Empire Everytime I go out into town, I feel like I’m walking around the ruins of the city in ‘Terminator’ where the machines hunt the people. … And, … where the machines are losing. … Remember that theme? … Recall what the machines do when they’re down to their last gambit? … Yep, uh huh, … they go back in time and send someone after the parents of the warrior leading the insurgency. … Can you believe the Getty/Newsom machine sent people after Matt Gonzalez’s parents? … Oh, they didn’t stop there. The spent 300 thousand dollars contacting every single client Gonzalez had in 10 years as a public defender. 300 grand looking for someone who’d bad mouth the guy. … They got nothing. … Nothing. … Folks, if you spent 5 minutes asking anyone around me who’d like to condemn me, you’d have a line at your door a block long. … You too, probably. … Venues & ground rules You know what a ‘home field’ advantage is? Newsom will only play on his home field. … Truth. … Bet on it. He wants his opponent in his backyard and he wants the rules set up for 30 to 60 second sound bytes. … He got by with it too. … He first met Gonzalez at KPIX in a debate in which all press except for the Chronicle were barred from the proceedings. … Yeah, that little prick, Phil Bronstein strutted by the rest of the town’s press in his gator skin boots with a little floozie and informed us that only his reporters were allowed in the studio. Now, call me an old silly, but that pissed me off. They ushered us to a little room with a TV and told us to enjoy. Assholes! Second debate, Gavin failed to show in Hunter’s Point. Sent convicted murderer and Minority Program defrauder, Charlie Walker in his place. … Really, you can’t make this shit up. … Newsom hides at home in Pacific Heights and sends this thug. Matt debates him. Third debate. … This one was held in Willie Brown’s personal church. … His church. … The place where he goes Sundays and everyone knows him and, should … respect him. Into the lion’s den again, Matt kicks Newsom’s ass solidly. Newsom goes into his fetal curl and begins demanding more concessions. … Concessions are for front-runners Somewhere between the November 4th election and the first KPIX debate, Gonzalez passed Newsom in popularity. … Now, he’s waaay ahead. … Somehow, Gavin’s campaign has managed to keep this information from Gavin. … Newsom kept demanding formats and venues of his own device. Since his people control the major media outlets, he’s gotten by with it. … Or, has he? Solidly throttled in every encounter with Matt thus far, Newsom continues to demand total control over place and time. Matt balks for the first time. He wants a real debate. … Newsom demurs. … It suddenly becomes evident what is happening. Newsom knows he’s going to lose and he doesn’t want to look any worse than he does already. To come out in the middle of the ring with Gonzalez at this time could risk permanent damage. Behind in the final week, Gavin Newsom is doing the political equivalent of putting a knee to the ground and running out the clock. … He’s counting on the scumbag tactics of Jack Davis to pull him through and it ain’t happening. Closing salvos Let us have a moment to call a friend and buddy up with them to vote for Matt Gonzalez. … No. … Call 2 friends and have them call 2 friends. That’s the way the pioneers defended our country in the old days. Two friends. … ‘Buddy-up’ … yeah, call two friends and meet em for a beer or coffee or tea after you vote. … This one is gonna be sweet. What did they used to say on ‘Star Trek’? … “Make it so, Number 2.” … Well, you make it two and you’ll be making it so. December 9th, 2003 … Matt Gonzalez for Mayor What a dream: