The circus tent taxpayers bought Oracle.

San Francisco Chronicle – A scheduling snafu involving the big annual Oracle party and the TV show “Trauma” has wound up costing San Francisco taxpayers $270,000.

The mega mix-up revolves around the party that Oracle tosses for 22,000 select clients.

For years, Oracle has rented out a big chunk of the eastern side of the island for its party, including an old airplane hangar.

That was the plan for this year’s Oct. 14 bash as well.

However, the city rented out the hangar to NBC’s “Trauma,” which, while filming in the city, has provided a number of people with jobs – including the mayor’s actress wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

Oracle – one of the biggest conventions of the year – found itself out in the cold.

Now, to keep everyone happy, the city is putting up a football-field-size tent on Treasure Island for the Oracle party. Cost: about $270,000.

Newsom didn’t try to explain away the mix-up or defend the ensuing costs.

How’s that?

The city is in an ongoing budget crisis and no explanation from the man-child mayor?

Network World is on the ball with a thoughtful analysis of the Newsom administration’s ineptitude, facilities mismanagement and callous response to the scandal.

Now times are tough in the high-tech industry, but Oracle last year made a profit of $5.6 billion on revenue of $23.2 billion. Not bad. They’re willing to spend $7.4 billion to buy Sun. And, of course, Oracle head honcho Larry Ellison is among the most ostentatiously rich people on the planet; Forbes has him pegged at No. 4, worth a sweet $22.5 billion.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s municipal finances have been anything but rosy given the destitute state of that state.

Under the circumstances, couldn’t the company — or Ellison himself — have picked up the tab for that tent instead of sticking it to the already traumatized taxpayers of San Francisco?

If not, the least the mayor’s office could have done is apologize for the costly screw-up.

Don’t hold your breath.

"Gavin, you've been practicing your eye contact..."

By now you’ve heard the news that former two-term U.S. president Bill Clinton is endorsing two-term San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense – they are both accomplished two-timers.

But this political romance is more about Clinton’s hate of Jerry Brown, than his affectation for the man-child mayor. Or so says conventional wisdom.

Sure, Newsom endorsed Hillary before she lost to my main man, B.  But even I don’t think that’s enough political skin to earn an ounce of flesh from WJC.

No, I’m sure Bill Clinton finally saw the opportunity to fuck over his 1992 nemesis. That’s what got the former president to unzip for this endorsement.

But it ain’t no thing.

Clinton will host maybe two-fundraising events for Newsom and maybe raise one or two million bucks for the Gavinator from Hollyweird. That’s not even enough scrillah for a fair game of catch up in the money race.

After the fundraisers, Clinton won’t waste political capital on the SS Gavin Newsom.

Time to go back to bartending?

Sources inside San Francisco City Hall and close to the Newsom campaign say it’s just a matter of time before Gavin Newsom quits his bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2010 California governor’s race.

Citing poor results in polls both statewide and locally and little fundraising traction, supporters and detractors alike say the Newsom campaign is a ship about to sink.

They point to over-the-summer stories of key long-time aides jumping ship and the fact that Gary South, his paid statewide campaign consultant, is failing to build team chemistry between remaining loyalists, as well as inspiring new people to join the team.

Additionally, sources close to Alex Tourk (the former best friend and campaign manager of Gavin Newsom) cited that renewed and damaging sex scandal allegations were privately presented to the Newsom campaign team.

Tourk allies, upset over Newsom’s attempt to rewrite history in recent interviews with national publications, told the Newsom for California campaign through intermediaries that more details of Newsom’s past would be leaked to national media.

Differences in strategy on how to continually message and spin Newsom’s sordid past was one major reason given as to why Eric Jaye, Gavin’s former long-time political advisor and consultant, left the struggling gubernatorial campaign.

As to the timing of his announcement to quit the governor’s race, sources close to Jaye say that Newsom will wait until the birth of his child and cite that major life event as the excuse for withdrawing from the race.

These anonymous sources say that there will be an “I am quitting the governor’s race so I can spend more time with my family” press release, sometime this fall around Halloween.

At least Gavin has a fall-back job — he can finally be mayor of San Francisco.

More likely, he’ll run for a less competitive statewide office or just go back to being a bartender at Plumpjack.

"Why do they say such things?"

SF Weekly — Seek out the political operatives who once worked closely with Newsom, and you’ll find that a number have soured on the mayor.

Ask them why, and you’ll be bombarded with his alleged character flaws. Among them: “thin-skinned,” “disloyal,” “friendless,” “joyless,” “Machiavellian,” “craven,” and “empty.”

One will tell you that Eric Jaye was “the best-paid babysitter in California.”

Several diagnose Newsom with an acute case of narcissism.

“He’s probably the worst mayor in modern history,” said Jack Davis, a strategist who has worked on the mayoral campaigns of Newsom, Willie Brown, and Frank Jordan. “I pity this poor state if lightning should strike and this cad becomes governor amidst the problems that the state has. He’d have a nervous breakdown. There’s no there there.”

Although there are also fervent supporters, dozens of interviews with City Hall staffers, strategists, and fundraisers yielded a surprising amount of disapproval.

Well-known consultants Jim Ross and Bob Brigham — who both worked on Newsom’s 2003 campaign — and 2007 campaign staffer David Latterman all have reservations.

“I’m concerned that his record and his temperament will not be fully vetted by the press,” Ross said.

Brigham was more direct. “I think Gavin would be a pretty awful governor,” he said, though he’s not too worried about it happening: “I don’t see any path to the nomination anymore.”

Hey buddy, can you spare a smell?

It’s been a slow August around here.

That’s because Gavin Newsom hasn’t been in San Francisco, while some of his press release ideas have failed. Just another typical month in the City by the Bay.

To recap the August smells of summer:

– Gavin Newsom is merely a dick, not a criminal. Or so says a legal expert about a city attorney memo Gavin leaked to the media about San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy.

– Why did Gavin go to Chicago to raise money and talk to ignorant young voters outside of CA? Newsom must now think he’s the white Barack Obama.

– PG&E Wave Power is dead in northern California. This “green” Gavin press release idea actually destroys the environment. Common sense prevails!

– Gavin doesn’t have solid support for the Governor’s race. Some recent polls show that the man-child mayor may never realize his fantasy of being the Gavinator.

Will September bring news of his gubernatorial campaign shutting down?

"Here's looking at you, Ruby..."

Gavin Newsom just loves to talk about sex.

Maybe he can’t stop talking about it because he’s a blathering sex junkie.

Of course I’m talking about the affair Newsom had with his best friend’s wife while she worked for him.

SF Weekly thinks there’s a sex tape even as the SF Examiner ponders why he won’t shut up about it. You’d think he’d just let the story die.

I’ve always said the man-child mayor needs media training, but for some reason he just wants to keep telling the Ruby Rippey-Tourk sex scandal story, over and over again.

Gavin is probably just channeling Wendy O. Williams.

Voter Beware!

SF Chronicle — This newspaper headline says it all:

Newsom just lost his brain.

Lots of people are now leaving Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor. It seems there might not be much of a future riding the SS Gavin Newsom.

And while Gavin decided to go South for a new brain, he’s showing his spending habits by burning cash like there’s no tomorrow.

Newsom, who has a full staff working the campaign, has only $1.1 million left in the bank.

Perhaps it would just be cheaper to post a craigslist personal ad — wanted: new brain.

SFGATE — Phil Bronstein asks:  How many flashy, technicolor buzzwords does it take to blind a voter?

I would like to see our Mayor doing some good Luddite governance here for a change: help fix the schools, follow voter mandates, keep the football team, figure out, together with someone other than his image managers, how to have maintenance levels of both public safety and social services with a lot less money.

Or how about this: actually show up for work and be physically available to your constituents and other officials, rather than megaphoning via social networks.

Realistically, though, how can we expect the Mayor to spend less time on shiny objects and more on the gritty reality of his responsibilities?

After all, University of SF political science professor Corey Cook said in the Guardian piece that Gavin was “sort of an island.” Except instead of water he’s surrounded by glib and dismissive political consultants.

San Francisco, the Mayor said yesterday in San Jose, is a model for the state, though he studiously avoided getting into the messy detail of how to fix California’s boatload of budget problems, never mind rioting in San Francisco over his proposed cuts here.

Maybe Gavin’s island looks OK from the outside. So did Gilligan’s Island. But everyone still wanted to escape, because to those stuck there, longing for real life instead of fantasy– it was a shipwreck.

"I hear these voices inside my head."

The Chronicle reports bad news for Gavin Newsom, the man-child candidate who seems to have become infatuated with techno-politics and his Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

Gavin said that cool kids under 30 won’t care if newspapers aren’t around anymore – he said it to The Economist — a print publication.

There is a correlation between the demographics of the people who read newspapers and the people who make the effort to vote.

Uh oh.  It’s one thing to get young people to Tweet your praises or befriend you on Facebook. It’s quite another to get them to the polls on election day.

Got media coach?

San Francisco definitely has enough staplers but Gavin Newsom's IT department is in total shambles.

Let it ring out — Gavin Newsom is tech savvy!  Yippee!

How did he become tech savvy?  Well gentle readers he announced his bid for governor on Twitter and Facebook.

For those of you who just returned to earth these are two sites where people announce they are hung over, have herpes, and basically act like hysterical twats.

I’m sure the man-child mayor is even more proud of his technology chops when it comes to managing the actual information technology of San Francisco.

Isn’t that the professional measure of tech savvy?

Gavin Newsom’s system is so well designed and managed, that ONE MAN locked the WHOLE CITY out of system administration:

Not only was Terry Childs the only admin, he was always on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As the only admin with the knowledge and access to the FiberWAN, he had no help. During the past few years, the DTIS staff has been significantly reduced due to budget cuts, keeping the city dependent on a sole admin for its core network.

With newly acquired kneepads, Gavin begged Childs for the password in jail.  Shortest jailhouse bromance in history, I’m sure.

Oh those pesky tech workers with their god complexes!  Maybe Childs just was trying to show how flimsy Gavin’s IT system and department is:

When I asked Terry if we could get a copy of the City’s network security policy some months ago, he told me, ‘I’ve been trying to get them to approve one for years. I’ve written ones up and submitted them, but they don’t want to do it, because they don’t want to be held to it.

It’s a known fact that San Franciso’s criminal justice computers don’t talk to each other, and City Hall still uses 10 year old desktop computers running Lotus notes or some other combination of paperclips and bubble gum.

Gavin pumps $200 million a year into IT and has little to show for it.

Savvvvvy?