So, like, you might assume that interviewer Hank Plante would ask about this mysterious absense from all his official events, and his unannounced, Mark Sanford-style trip to Hawaii. But Newsom just wants to grin and laugh the soulless laugh of a cornered Scientologist, and talk about the budget deficit. It is a terrible, terrible interview, with the rictus smile and the mirthless laughter. And it ends with Newsom removing his mic and bitching, off the record, about how mean it is of journalists to ask what the hell is up with him.

And then the Wall Street Journal reported that Newsom was going to quit politics and go back to his winery. Newsom called the reporter to deny it, but there's no way in hell this guy's remaining in office until 2012.

The San Francisco mayor/golden child hasn't been seen in public since Oct. 30, and his staff had no idea if he went to Hawaii as reported because he didn't tell them anything. Now the local Board of Supervisors is debating whether Newsom might be hunkered down with a city-funded svengali, according to Brock Keeling at SFist:

It is rumored that the San Francisco Mayor spent little time with anyone else other than his life coach during the last few days of his gubernatorial bid. Said life coach also might have accompanied Newsom to Hawaii last week... Supervisor Chris Daly asked the city controller to look into whether or not city funds were used to pay Newsom's life coach.

It's a great move on Newsom's part: Making a grand show of his pain and introspection will only make his future claims that "I have truly changed!" or whatever all the more believable. Especially since, as Keeling points out, life coaches are well known to dedicated reality TV viewers. Those are any wife-fucking recovering-alcoholic gay-marrying mayor's core constituents! (Life coach footage below, via SFist.)

(Top pic: Newsom by darthdowney on Flickr)

Stuck twenty points behind Democratic rival Jerry Brown and without the support of "major San Francisco donors who helped underwrite Newsom's successful campaigns in the city," Newsom is dropping out of the governor's race. Newsom dropped the word "young" into his exit speech, a move that helps remind people he's a rising political star who in all likelihood plans to try again for higher office, just once he tackles some of those festering homelessness and crime problems he promised to attack when first elected mayor six years ago.

Though losing an alcoholic wife-fucker like Newsom will take some fun out of the gubernatorial race, the contest still features Democratic hopeful Brown, who proposed a state space academy last time he was governor, and Republican contender Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO whose personal voting record is "unacceptable," according to one Meg Whitman.

First, Emeryville mayor Ken Bukowski killed a guy with his car. Then he was slapped for inappropriate loans. Now his niece accuses him of meth addiction. A lone bad apple? Not among San Francisco Bay Area mayors.

Bukowski is no longer mayor of Emeryville, the small city that's home to Steve Jobs' Pixar, and was even stripped of his vice mayorship. But that's not to say misbehavior is regularly punished. In the superficially spiritual Bay Area, the belief in redemption and personal reinvention springs eternal, and the locals don't need the unifying trauma of a world-changing metropolitan disaster to get over a leader's moral failings; a half-sincere pledge of contrition will do just fine.

A mayor can then move on to greater things. Like running for governor. And people wonder why some top tech talent finds the area "filthy" and utterly dysfunctional. Some of the mayors in question (click each to expand):

It's not just Gavin Newsom's hair that's oily. The San Francisco mayor slept with his chief of staff's wife., and within four days said he would seek treatment for alcohol abuse. Since then, Newsom has repeatedly declined to discuss his "treatment," but has launched a campaign for California governor and won an endorsement from, of all people, Hillary Clinton. And she thought she was done forgiving adulterous men. (Pic: by Thomas Hawk)

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates eventually pled guilty to trashing about 1,000 copies of the University of California, Berkeley student newspaper after the paper endorsed his opponent. He initially denied throwing away the papers, but confessed, in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, "a month later, after campus police prepared a report to send to the district attorney." His punishment? Re-election in 2006 (with the Chronicle's endorsement). (Disclaimer: I edited the UC Berkeley student paper in college but was long gone when the Bates thing happened.) (Pic: by Allen Lew)

When mayor of Emeryville two years ago, Ken Bukowski accidentally struck and killed a security job in his car on a rainy day. What did he tell the San Francisco Chronicle? "I don't feel the accident will impair my ability to serve as the city's new mayor." Police reportedly did not test the mayor for drugs or alcohol.

But his niece has just accused him of being a meth addict and ratted him out for keeping a rent-controlled apartment across the bay in San Francisco even though he's a councilman in Emeryville. Bukowski has also been investigated and stripped of various city council titles for taking tens of thousands of dollars in loans from developers and other businesses; busted for failing to pay taxes and fined for misusing campaign funds.

You can blame Bukowski's constituents for electing him, but not for making him mayor: that position is selected by the council on a rotating basis.

It's not unreasonable to expect that Newsom, a candidate for California governor, might have seen the essay from Twitter API lead Alex Payne (pictured); it's attracted plenty of notice among bloggers on both coasts. The blog post, titled "So You're Moving to San Francisco," carries extra punch for two reasons: Its tone is more dispassionate than ranty, acknowledging the city's upside along with its flaws; and it comes from a man whose job involves interfacing with the growing ecosystem of Twitter-centric startups, many of which are based in and around San Francisco.

After giving the city credit for its weather, food, cocktails, coffee and tech scene, Payne moves on to the reasons he desperately wants to ditch San Francisco for the uber-trendy hipster haven of Portland, Oregon "once I'm able to work remotely with confidence:"

• an annoying surplus of superifical and narcissistic well-to-do white nerds;
  
• crime;
  
• human waste and other filth in the streets;
  
• streets choked with homeless people;
• terrible mass transit;
  
• "mediocre" cultural offerings;
  
• hollowed out neighborhoods with weak architecture.

And then there are the ones that hit Newsom where it hurts. Though the mayor was first elected in 2003 on a promise to improve the homeless situation, Payne complains that

• "the city government seem[s] to accept these circumstances..."
• and about "Generally poor urban/civic planning"

An excerpt:

For a first world city, San Francisco is dirty. No, filthy. No, disgusting. Whenever I travel outside of San Francisco, I'm amazed at what a disastrous anomaly it is. Sidewalks are routinely covered in broken glass, trash, old food, and human excrement...



.... Aging hippies in the Haight argue about marijuana legalization and anti-war referendums when men and women are dying – visibly dying – on the streets of the Tenderloin. It's as if all parties don't occupy the same city...

Payne isn't the first to make these observations about San Francisco, and he won't be the last. But he's a key staffer at a company Newsom holds up as a pinnacle of local entrepreneurial achievement, and his scathing evaluation comes fully six years after Newsom was elected to office on a promise to clean up many of these exact problems. Oh, and then there's this: Payne is largely correct.

Twitter Inc. probably isn't leaving San Francisco anytime soon; co-founder and SF resident Evan Williams is building a new house, Silicon Valley is too dreadfully dull for Twitter's hipster executives and Portland lacks the depth of tech talent needed to source top flight engineers. But the high-profile startup need not abandon its hometime to damage San Francisco's reputation. It just needs to complain this loudly.

(Pic by Lou Springer)

Like the current movie-star governor, the carefully-shellacked San Francisco mayor makes the Golden State's gubernatorial race feel surreal in a "fruits and nuts" way that competitors like ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman and even former hippie governor Jerry Brown just can't. This is the guy whose press secretary jokes merrily about weed, and who recently had the gall to tell the New York Times that his affair with his friend's wife was "much more benign than [things] actually appeared in print."

The blog I Love You Gavin Newsom claims that City Hall and campaign sources say Newsom will quit the governor's race, probably in the fall, since he's anywhere from 9 to 29 points behind Brown in the polls. On the other hand, Newsom is rumored to be getting an endorsement from former president Bill Clinton, and I Love You Gavin Newsom has proven a touch too conspiracy minded in the past (we sympathize!). So let's hope they're wrong on this, if only because we might otherwise have to draft Gary Coleman to run again.

• Farrah Fawcett, rumored again to be on her deathbed, and Ryan O'Neal are finally getting married after all those long, tumultuous years together as a Hollywood couple. And surely this will be filmed and turned into a primetime television special. [Sun]
  
  
• Fox News anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ex-wife of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, and furniture designer Eric Villency are ending their brief marriage. [Page Six]
  
  
• Horrible lad-mag FHM has named Megan Fox the sexiest woman to ever live in the history of the universe, or something like that. [Sun]
  
  
• It's rumored that Paul Giamatti may replace Sean Penn in the upcoming Three Stooges flick after Penn decided to take an extended period of time off to spend time with his family. [EOnline]
  
  
• Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon go to the gym together wearing matching outfits from head to toe. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Matthew McConaughey has announced that he has knocked up girlfriend Camila Alves with their second child. Further, he did so shirtless while running on the beach with a bandana on his head. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Have you seen how Drew Barrymore and Justin Long dress up to attend baseball games? Good God this is obnoxious! [DListed]
  
  
• Paris Hilton has taken her act to Dubai and has discovered the joys of riding camels. She's there to try on some clothes or attend a nightclub opening or something important like that. [PITNB]
  
  
• When Justin Timberlake flies to Paris, he does so with a large bodyguard carrying an automatic weapon to scare off any potential autograph seekers. [TMZ]
  
  
• Miley Cyrus took a "provocative" picture with her 44 year-old director and posted it to her Twitter. [Sun]

Wailin Wong of the Chicago Tribune lamented the knuckle-draggers reading her paper.

Washington, DC local TV reporter Brian Bolter pulled what is now known in the industry as a "Chris Matthews." Must be contract time!

Comedian Heather Gold
practiced her non-sequiturs.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom reminded everyone he practiced gay marriage before it was cool. Or technically legal, actually!

Onetime pajama blogger Ana Marie Cox, presently of the Daily Beast, took a suspiciously personal-sounding stand in support of the half naked.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

CNN's Larry King is documenting your sexual harassment and doesn't have to take it, crazy View lady!

Jimmy Fallon took the fate of his iPhone way too personally.

Paul Carr edited our copy (someone should!).

The liberal mayor of San Francisco bragged about a new form of taxation he invented, and about handling butts. Typical.

The Telegraph's Edmund Conway was reduced to gibberish by his blogging system.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

If Jennifer Siebel Newsom were a successful Hollywood player, her Tinseltown celebrity would surely help her husband's run for office. But she's not. Here's what Newsom's campaign site has to say about California's would-be First Lady:

Jennifer is also a working actress having starred in various shows such as NBC'S "Life," AMC'S "Mad Men," and CBS' "Numb3rs." She has performed in various studio and independent films such as "In The Valley of Elah," "Rent," "Something's Gotta Give" and she has an upcoming role on NBC's pilot "Trauma."

A glance at IMDB reveals that her acting career is not quite that elevated. She had one scene in one episode of Mad Men; she played a receptionist in Rent.

Oddly, Newsom doesn't mention the one movie in which Jennifer did legitimately play a starring role: The Trouble With Romance. The film, which had a brief theatrical run in New York City in February and March, showed her disrobing for a threeway. Just wait until the couple's offspring downloads that!

Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO and noted gay-marriage opponent, is vying to be the Republican candidate for governor in California's 2010 election. She might well face one of her former lieutenants, Steve Westly, who left eBay to run for state controller, a post he won in 2002; he previously ran as a Democratic candidate for governor in 2006, but lost in the primary.

Or she might contend with Gavin Newsom, the tech-friendly mayor of San Francisco, who has courted the chiefs of Google, Twitter, and Facebook in launching his run. (Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ferried guests to Newsom's wedding last year in their private jet.)

It's a turnabout for Northern California, which has long been noted for funding campaigns, not launching them. Will the nerd candidates play in California's conservative Central Valley, or glitzy Hollywood? Kelly has one advantage: He knows all about building a social network.

Nathan Ballard, a former flack for John Kerry and Wes Clark in their failed presidential bids, offered this quip on medical marijuana legislation under consideration in the city:

The mayor will have to hash this out with public health officials. It's the mayor's job to weed out bad legislation. And to be blunt, this sounds pretty bad.

Haha, geddit? We're surprised the San Francisco Chronicle didn't note that Ballard called them at 4:20 p.m.

Newsom is widely expected to run for governor of California next year, so expect more highly entertaining Ballardiana. (Too bad about your bosses' losing streak, man!)

(Photo by Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal)

Chloe Newsom, who once loudly claimed to a reporter that she was the mayor's first cousin, abused Newsom for betraying his staunchly Democratic family by appearing on Fox News, the channel where Newsom's ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle works, over the weekend:

Newsom, who's putting together a run to be governor of California, responded to her, explaining that he had to "reach out." His mention of her name resulted in a flood of new Twitter pals for Chloe.

Not that the younger Newsoms particularly mind being famous! Gavin and his cousins are all scions of a wealthy, influential political family in San Francisco. His father, William Newsom, helped manage the Getty family's oil fortune (and later helped mismanage a doomed startup called Pay By Touch.)

San Francisco writer Harmon Leon, author of American Dream, ran into an unnamed Newsom cousin, whom he now confirms was none other than Chloe Newsom, five years ago, on the eve of Gavin's election as mayor. Leon squired her to the election-night party of Newsom's opponent, Matt Gonzalez. She had high hopes for the resulting publicity:

I take Gavin Newsom's first cousin, her friend and the drunk guy to Gonzalez's headquarters. At least she has enough sense to know that even though she is not a Green Party member, there is a much, much better party going on. I whip off my tie and head toward the Mission. Yes, I'm taking Gavin Newsom's first cousin to the dark side!

"My cousin would kill me if he finds out," proclaims Gavin Newsom's first cousin as she relays myriad stories about family gatherings with Gavin and the Gettys....

Just shortly after arriving, Gavin Newsom's first cousin asks to go back to my car so she can put on more makeup. She then tries to tear down a poster depicting Bush, Schwarzenegger and her first cousin that reads "The Holy Untrinity!"

"Will you mention my name in your article?" asks Gavin Newsom's first cousin when we return to Gonzalez headquarters. "I want to be like Paris Hilton!" ...

Gavin Newsom's first cousin is eager to meet her relative's rival. She approaches the approachable Gonzalez and flaunts the fact that she is Gavin Newsom's first cousin.

"I now have the biggest crush on Matt Gonzalez," she states directly afterward. "Oh, my god, I so want to make out with Matt Gonzalez."

How frustrating it must have been to young Chloe — who's now 24, and would therefore have been under legal drinking age during that boozy election night — not to have been named then!

A better-known Newsom relative is Joanna Newsom — Gavin's second cousin. She is a singer. A really, really bad one. As Leon notes, Joanna's voice sounds like a baby gargling:

Be sure to check out Chloe Newsom's MySpace page. Her username is "iwasneveranygood," and her profile is a lot of fun! For example: She has a photo album titled "Welcome to L.A. You guys are fucking gay" — which should really help Gavin when he's campaigning for governor down south!

"The exception you'll see, the Mumbai bombing, some of the best reporting was bloggers," says Newsom. Oh, Gavin! We think San Francisco's hunky god-mayor could have picked a far better example — like, say, that time a blogger in his own city scooped all of the local newspapers and television stations on the news of Newsom's impending fatherhood.

As if he planned to reveal it all along, Newsom casually Twittered that his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was pregnant, after the Valleywag reported the news yesterday. In a news conference today, though, he admitted that the news didn't come out quite the way he wanted:

The mayor fielded questions about fatherhood today following a news conference about improvements to Civic Center Plaza, saying that the baby is due later this year, possibly sometime in September.

Newsom welcomed "any advice on diapers, any advice on feeding times, any advice on names," or other topics related to a new child, and said he was already receiving tips on his Twitter account....

He said some extended family members learned of the pregnancy through TV reports.

He even apologized to his Aunt Annie:

"Unfortunately, some gossip column in New York City leaked this, and so we didn't announce it in the way we intended to, but such is the life of public service," Newsom said Thursday outside City Hall. "I had to deal with my aunt. To my Aunt Annie, I apologize for you watching it on TV last night. The point being that I hadn't reached out to our extended family to let them know before everyone else found out."

("Some gossip column in New York City"? Gavin, hon, you need to brush up on your local media. Valleywag is based in San Francisco. How else would we have heard about it first?)

What better way to play the news than as benighted new father, dealing with anxious relatives and soliciting advice about diapers? It is a happy event for the Newsoms, certainly, as a family. But going into a tight race to be California's next governor, it could also spell a rebirth of his political ambitions.

Newsom, a Democrat, has declared himself a candidate for California's governor seat, a wide-open race taking place next year, since term limits are keeping Arnold Schwarzenegger from running again. A rising star in the Democratic party, Newsom has hurt himself with gaffes both personal and political.

He and his first wife, Fox News TV host kimberly Guilfoyle, divorced in 2006. While going through the divorce, Newsom had an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his campaign manager, Alex Tourk. The divorce and affair ruined Newsom's Camelot-by-the-Bay image.

His wedding last year to Siebel, a cousin of wealthy software entrepreneur Tom Siebel, was a step towards restoring his tattered image. (Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ferried guests in their private jet to the wedding site on a Montana ranch.)

But then came Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage, a cause Newsom has championed since he defied state law in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples (including the author of this post). At a rally, Newsom declared that gay marriage was coming to California "whether you like it or not," a sound bite Prop 8 supporters aired endlessly in TV commercials and was cited in many election post-mortems as a factor in the passage of Prop 8.

With memories of his messy personal life still fresh, and his main cause defeated in the last state election, Newsom's push for the governor's seat looked like it was off to a rocky start. In the Democratic primary, he faces California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the former Governor Moonbeam.

But political observers say Brown may strike potential voters as too old. With Newsom's wife expecting a child in the fall, he will have the perfect family-man campaign prop. What better way for a claimant to the throne to seem young and vital than to have his very own heir?

Update: The mayor's office has confirmed that the Newsoms are expecting. Spokesman Nathan Ballard said:

We are pleased to confirm that Mayor Gavin Newsom and First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom are starting a family. The Mayor and the First Lady are thrilled to be embarking on this adventure together, and they appreciate your good wishes.

Guess who wasn't expecting this? Gavin's dad and Jennifer's mom, both of whom told the San Francisco Examiner that their children hadn't let them in on the secret.

(Photos by Getty Images)