Money & Politics | Daily Report

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As the Bay Citizen noted, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was “conspicuously absent” from the City Hall steps last month when a cheering crowd gathered to celebrate the landmark ruling overturning Prop. 8. Newsom’s early and defiant support of same-sex marriage – in 2004, without legal authority, he began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples – was the signature move of his mayoralty.

It won him abiding, deeply loyal support from gay voters, and that support bulletproofed him from the consequences of later missteps and excesses that otherwise might have ended his career.

But Newsom is running for lieutenant governor now, locked in a tight race with the appointed Republican incumbent Abel Maldonado. Perhaps, in that context, a video photo-op that would remind voters of Newsom’s support for a controversial measure may not make political sense. At any rate, the mayor had a scheduling conflict during the Prop. 8 rally. It’s going to be a tough campaign.

Just how tough is suggested by the remarkable eight-minute web video cobbled together by Maldonado’s campaign, mostly from San Francisco news footage. It’s got an edge to it.   

The video starts with Newsom’s famously boastful speech after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, the decision that prompted the Prop. 8 initiative campaign. “The door’s wide open now!” Newsom declares. “It’s gonna happen now whether you like it or not!”

Then there are clips of Newsom denying he would consider running for lieutenant governor: “What does the lieutenant governor do? For the life of me, I don’t know,” he says.

After that, the mayor is depicted blowing his top a couple of times with reporters. He stalks past ABC 7’s Dan Noyes and yells as he gets into the mayoral limo. He storms out of a City Hall sit-down when CBS 5’s Hank Plante asks the wrong question.

The video ends on a darker note, with a clip of a sobbing widow whose husband and two sons were murdered by an illegal immigrant with a felony conviction.

The widow blames Newsom for the deaths because a city policy forbade police from reporting felons with immigration issues to federal authorities.

“If they had done something, this animal wouldn’t have taken my family,” the widow tells Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

Newsom supporters say the video is distorted and unfair. Brooke Armour, press secretary for Maldonado, says, “A majority of the video is his own words.”

So far, the video is web-only. A San Francisco political player winces at the thought of what’s coming next.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “Ruby Tourk hurts him the worst, and they haven’t even done that yet.” He was referring to the mayor’s 2007 admission that he had an affair with his appointment's secretary, who also was married to Newsom’s campaign manager. After confessing the affair, Newsom announced he would enter treatment for alcohol abuse.

In a recent e-mail blast, Newsom told supporters the contest with Maldonado is “a statistical dead heat. That means our race is now too close to call."

In order to win in November, we need to get our message out across the state and that's where each and every one of you comes in. I just met with my campaign team, and in order to meet our goals, I need to raise $25,000 in the next 48 hours.