On Monday, Mayor Sam reported some rumors that were floating around the political world, that Garry South had told Gavin to raise $5 million by the end of the year or drop out.

Today, CalBuzz got the story from the horse’s mouth, and boy, is it an angry mouth.  

“This is complete, utter bullshit, and I categorically deny it.  “Mayor Sam” never talked to me to pass any of these hearsay assertions by me, and he is just picking up and disseminating intentional disinformation from the Brown camp – including Brown himself, who’s too busy “doing his job as AG” to debate, but has time to hang on the phone in his Oakland loft starting and spreading rumors about Newsom.  I don’t give my candidates ultimatums of any sort.” (CalBuzz 10/07/09)

Mayor Sam responded this morning to South’s rant.

The thrust of our piece Monday was that Newsom has had such major trouble collecting any real campaign jack the San Francisco Mayor had to throw a hail mary pass and roll out a way earlier than usual endorsement of a former POTUS – Bill “BJ” Clinton in an LA photo opp at a green college building earlier this week. (Mayor Sam 10/07/09)

In the end, I sort of believe South on this one. It just doesn’t seem like South to tell a paying client to drop out of a race. And, as he pointed out, he did stay with some rather big underdogs in the form of Gray Davis and Steve Westly when they were polling quite low.  That being said, Davis was a pretty good fundraiser and Westly could self-fund.

I would be very surprised to see Newsom drop out of the race early, nor do I think it would be good for the state.  A vigorous exchange of ideas (not mud) is critical to ensure that the Democratic nominee supports, or at least understands, the goals of the progressive grassroots.  

(Some thoughts from the current San Francisco Democratic Party Chair and former president of the Board of Supes on the role of a clean campaign in electing a Democratic Governor. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

In the past month, the political spin doctors behind Mayor Gavin Newsom have been boasting about their intent to run a negative campaign against their most likely Democratic opponent for Governor – California’s Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown.

In just the latest round of personal attacks, Newsom strategist Garry South attacked Brown in print for having taken “more positions than in the Karma Sutra.” I will leave it to Mayor Newsom to explain why his staff is making references to sex manuals, particularly given his own recent scandals. But this latest detour into political trash talk illustrates why Democrats across California need to be concerned with Newsom’s intent to launch a negative campaign.

As Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, my mission is to help make sure we elect a Democratic governor in November of 2010. The latest series of devastating state cuts to services for children and seniors is another reminder of just how important it is for our party to win back the governor’s office in Sacramento.

Edit By Brian for space, see the flip…

Achieving this most important goal is going to be difficult enough for Democrats, considering the challenging history of California gubernatorial elections and the hard reality that the Republicans are likely to nominate either Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner, either of whom can pour tens of millions of personal dollars into their own campaigns. Newsom’s own strategist acknowledges just how difficult it is for Democrats to win California Gubernatorial elections.

But if Newsom continues his negative campaign, we will almost certainly emerge in June with a divided party and a weakened nominee. The only beneficiary of such a strategy will be the Republicans.

After pledging to run a netroots-driven campaign that could “change California,” Newsom is now resorting the most traditional form of electioneering – raising money from special interests and using those funds to attack his opponent.

Democrats need to be concerned about this change of strategy because of the logical consequences of such a campaign. If Newsom continues to attack Brown, particularly in such a personal and juvenile fashion, he will both depress grassroots enthusiasm and ultimately draw a response.

Having served with Newsom on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and having worked both with him and against him depending on the policy when I served as President of the Board during his mayoral administration, I know just how vulnerable Newsom is to the counter-attacks his negative strategy will draw.

Newsom’s personal and political vulnerabilities are legion, and well known to San Franciscans who have followed his career. Why he is throwing stones, considering the brittle consistency of his own political house, is mysterious.

But his constant attacks, and the counter-attacks that could shatter his own candidacy, will leave our party weak and dispirited going into one of the most important gubernatorial elections in recent history.

As Democrats, we need to make sure this does not happen. That’s why both the Democratic parties of San Francisco and Los Angeles Counties have passed Clean Campaign resolutions, urging Newsom, and any other candidate who enters the race, to agree to a positive campaign.

Newsom has so far refused to sign this pledge. But we hope that the netroots will hold him accountable and help us encourage him to stop the attacks and return to a clean campaign.

Less than 48 hours after “King of Mean” Garry South was left calling the shots in the Gavin Newsom campaign for Governor, the SF Chronicle had a front-page piece attacking Jerry Brown.  Apparently, Brown fundraising for his favorite charities carries all sorts of “conflict-of-interest” allegations that voters should be mindful about in next year’s election.  But this wasn’t the first time reporter Carla Marinucci went on the attack to help Garry South’s clients.  In the last gubernatorial race, Marinucci used her perch at the Chronicle to repeatedly go after rival Phil Angelides – who was locked in a nasty primary fight against South client Steve Westly.  On March 16, 2006, Marinucci wrote a story on Angelides that strangely resembled yesterday’s piece on Brown – attacking the state Treasurer for raising corporate donations to a non-profit.  South burned bridges in that race with his scorched-earth campaign against Angelides (and bad-mouthing the nominee after the primary was over), and it seems like he’s back to his old tricks.  But feeding stories to the Chronicle sounds like part of his modus operandi.

The 2006 Democratic primary fight between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides can best be described as a “murder-suicide pact” that accomplished nothing except re-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But while Angelides spent his time criticizing Westly’s positions (he attacked him for being “too close” to the Governor), Westly ran a smear campaign on Angelides that involved his connection with developers, a Lake Tahoe dredging project and a history of corporate fundraising.  It was classic Garry South tactics: throw a ton of money behind attack ads that tear down your rival, leaving everyone bloodied in the end.

And right there to rev up the engines under the guise of media “objectivity” was Carla Marinucci.  Her front-page Chronicle story on May 31, 2006 – one week before the election – focused on Angelides’ ties with real estate developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, repeating the Westly campaign’s discredited charge about connections with illegal dumping in Lake Tahoe.  Marinucci wrote numerous op-eds masquerading as “news analysis” during the race that made Angelides look bad, such as her May 1st piece that said he faced an “uphill climb” at winning the nomination, right after getting the Democratic Party’s endorsement.

Garry South didn’t stop his attacks on Angelides after his candidate lost the primary, and neither did the Chronicle’s Marinucci.  Barely two days after the nomination fight was over, she had another front-page “news analysis” that said Angelides would have to sell his platform to a “reluctant electorate.”  It was in that article where she quoted South as saying: “it would be hard to single out [Angelides’] biggest liability because he’s a walking Achilles heel … Arnold and his Karl Rove-trained wrecking crew will tear the guy apart, atom by atom.”  That piece set the tone for the rest of the campaign season, and Angelides went on to lose badly to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday’s attack on Jerry Brown was odd, because it’s not unusual for high-profile career politicians like Brown to fundraise for various charities – with donations coming from corporations.  Gavin Newsom does the same – such as the party he threw in Denver at the Democratic National Convention, which was sponsored by AT&T and PG&E.  But the implication of Marinucci’s article was clear – corporations will influence Jerry Brown by giving money to his favorite charities (where there are no donation limits), rather than contributing directly to his campaign.

But what makes this interesting is that Marinucci made almost the same accusation about Phil Angelides, back in 2006.  In a story published on March 16 as he faced Garry South’s candidate, Marinucci dredged up an 17-year-old story about Angelides raising wads of cash from corporate donors to the California Legislative Forum.  Just like her latest attack on Brown, Marinucci alleged the state Treasurer had found an end-run around campaign contribution limits to help rich donors influence elected officials.

At the time, my colleague Randy Shaw panned the story as a “classic example” of political propaganda.  “Arnold [Schwarzenegger] has raised millions from special interests while serving as California’s Governor,” he wrote.  “Angelides did his fundraising as a private citizen … There’s quite a difference between a Governor raising money from the special interests whose operations he oversees, and a private fundraiser who has no authority or influence over potential donors.”

Garry South ran Steve Westly’s campaign against Phil Angelides, and with Eric Jaye’s exit is now the chief strategist in Gavin Newsom’s campaign against Jerry Brown.  One can expect a seasoned campaign operative to push a partisan story against an opponent, although few do it as brazenly as South.  If the stories against Angelides and Brown had come directly from South, everyone would know the messenger had his own agenda.

But when the top political reporter of a major newspaper takes such attacks and puts them on the front page as “news,” it creates a serious problem with the public trust.  Marinucci appears to have recycled the same line of attack against Brown she used for Angelides, which calls into question whether Garry South is feeding her these stories.  It also sheds light on the Newsom campaign’s new strategy, and the direction South is taking it.

Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, where this piece was first published.

Lots of early positioning in the last week, especially the news from Senator Dianne Feinstein that she would make a decision as to running in the new year (translation: don’t write checks to other candidates during the reporting period that ends…at the end of the year).

On a conference call with bloggers, Lt. Governor John Garamendi noted that he’d be announcing a campaign manager in a bit, but couldn’t say the name now. Let the speculation begin.

Carla Marinucci looked at who will land Ace Smith, who has a stellar reputation. Carla was tipped about Smith joining a Jerry Brown for Governor facebook group (currently standing at 63 members), but I think we all need to remember joining a facebook group is not an endorsement, as Smith pointed out. Of course, the story looked at how Smith has recently worked for both Attorney General Jerry Brown and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It should be noted, neither have a facebook page of their own…

More discussion on Gavin Newsom getting busted with Garry South. Randy Shaw said, “for all of his unpopularity with bloggers, the traditional media, progressives and politicians, Garry South was likely the most experienced and competent campaign manager available.” Tim Redmond brushed it off because, “anyone who thinks Newsom will run for governor as a San Francisco progressive hasn’t been paying attention to the mayor’s history and career. He ran for mayor the first time as a pro-business moderate, and that’s how he’ll run for governor.”

In Brian’s Open Letter on Garry South, he wrote:

As the presidential campaigns staff up in California and across the nation, I implore them, for their own sake, to stay away from Mr. South.  This state is sick of his apparent disdain for the base of the Democratic party.  Furthermore, his triangulation for every candidate that he has managed has ultimately led to an erosion of the Democratic brand.  If you care to read George Lakoff’s books, you will see that South violates pretty much every suggestion provided by the progressive movement’s greatest linguist.

I do not intend to make idle threats, but there is no surer way to writing off the support of the netroots in California than hiring Garry South. In fact, Mr. South has received votes of no-confidence from national blogs as well.

Which, South proved on Newsom’s signature issue, when he actually went to the right of Al From (Newsom is a long-time DLC member):

Al From, who heads the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, which highlighted Newsom among two dozen rising stars last month at its conference in Aspen, believes that Newsom “may have gotten a little bit ahead of himself with gay marriage — but the country as a whole will catch up.”

From said the bigger issue is that Newsom is “not afraid of change. That can only bode well for someone who has a good future in politics.”

Not all Democrats are so unfailingly positive about Newsom’s political future. Veteran Democratic consultant Garry South said Newsom is “a very attractive, very intelligent new political figure on the California scene,” and one who has shown gutsy moves in areas like tackling the homeless problem and improving the city’s business environment.

Still, South warned that same-sex marriage illustrated “the danger he faces is believing that San Francisco politics is just a smaller version of California statewide politics.”

In clearing the way for marriages previously rejected by California’s voters, South said Newsom embarked on “an unfortunate and somewhat self- indulgent move … that had some effect on the presidential campaign.”

“I can’t say that John Kerry would have won (without the issue),” South said, “but it was certainly not helpful to have our Democratic ticket having to campaign in states like Ohio which had a gay marriage thing on the ballot.”

Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona agreed that Newsom’s moves on same-sex marriage “absolutely” aided the Republican effort to re- elect Bush in 2004. emphasis added

What are you hearing about the early positioning?

Score another win for the internet exposing the ugly underbelly of transactional politics at it’s worst. A SoCal Blogger started rolling his camera when Gavin Newsom parked his SUV in a fire lane for a meeting at Starbucks. It didn’t take long for Carla Marinucci to notice the person he was meeting with, DLC Strategist Garry South.

Who is Garry South? Joe Lieberman announced he was running for president on Janunary 13, 2003. A January 16-20, 2003 ABC News/Washington Post Poll had Lieberman the clear front-runner, with more support than his next two closest competitors combined. Then Lieberman hired Gary South, started tanking, then started talking about Joementum just before calling his FIFTH place finish a three way tie for third. David Letterman said, “Because of poor results at the primaries last night, Senator Joe Lieberman will be dropping out of the race. Earlier today, he broke the news to his supporter.” Lieberman was subsequently kicked out of the Democratic Party.

Garry South elected Gray Davis with an impressive 58% and drove him so far south that he was kicked out by 55%. Jay Leno said, “Another hot day in California. It was so hot I actually saw a mirage. It was a Gray Davis supporter, I couldn’t believe it.” Steve Westly had all the money in the world, double digit lead two months out and ended up losing by 5 points thanks to Garry South. His DLC triangulation (Mayor Newsom is a long time DLC member) is so bad that many California bloggers signed on to an an open letter warning the presidential candidates about Garry South (must read, long but exposes exactly why this is the last person Newsom wants to get busted by bloggers with).

Interestingly enough, this is not even one of the better scandals the mayor has had online. This doesn’t come close to the sock-puppet-gate scandal that brought down his press secretary. Jennifer Siebel thought a good follow-up on that would be to go to SFist and make front page news. Then, just two weeks ago, Newsom thought a bloggers convention would be a good venue to come out against clean energy. The internet sure is going to be a fun place to watch the 2010 Democratic Primary play out.