Anyway, the real story here is that it's an uninteresting race, but that that shouldn't matter. With Gavin Newsom running unopposed in the minds of many a San Franciscan, the city sheriff having no serious challengers, and the district attorney running unopposed, we can see why. And according to Alex Clemens in today's Examiner (AP), "[w[]"ithout a good fight at hand, a lot of people are worried that many San Franciscans will opt out of the process and just go to work instead." (That what they want you to believe, man! Wheels within wheels.)...

We'd have a sad face too if the Chron came out against our position on Question Time, some mayoral pipsqueak in Santa Clara was out to eat our Niners lunch, and our chief of staff had just resigned because he'd been clashing with our minder Peter Ragone! (Though for full disclosure, this picture's almost two years old.) The latest news on the 2007 mayoral front? The Examiner went down to City Hall and got......

The good folks who bring local political junkies our daily news updates and analysis at The Usual Suspects are all affiliated with a political lobbying/consulting group known as Barbary Coast Consulting. So you know when you see the bright green headline on Usual Suspects that says "Supes Question Giving Contract To Lobbying Firm" and the note in bold from Usual Suspects publisher Alex Clemens that says "We think everyone who reads Suspects should be aware......

All good San Francisco political junkies have Usual Suspects bookmarked on their browser. The local clearinghouse of all things political keeps everyone up to date, diligently reading and summarizing all the articles about anything even remotely related to local politics -- and not just the articles featuring Chris Daly doing something vaguely embarrassing, like some other websites we might mention. We sat down (virtually) with the seven folks behind the scenes and chatted 'em......

What's everyone got against the San Francisco Sentinel these days, anyways? It's got beautiful photography, keeps an ear firmly planted on the ground of City Hall, and runs a fairly-entertaining gossip column to boot! Well, sure, there was that H. Brown controversy, but that seems to have resolved with H's summary axing from the site, right? Well, not quite. So all in this week, editors Pat Murphy and Luke Thomas are besieged on all sides. So SF political newssite Usual Suspects dropped the Sentinel from its blogroll this week. No reason was given, but Murphy's weekly gossip column seems to imply (if you can get through the obscurantist prose) that Alex Clemens said the Sentinel runs articles based on advertiser preference and doesn't get balancing quotes from all sides before running stories. But SFist is on the Suspects blogroll too and we don't get quotes from even one side before we run anything! What gives? Do we need to start reporting now or something too? On the left flank, Supervisor Chris Daly revives his smoldering feud with Murphy and reports that he's gotten a letter from the City Attorney that he believes makes clear that the Sentinel should be considered a political committee and thus should disclose all its donors to the ethics commission. And Supervisor Aaron Peskin wrote a letter to the Sentinel (scroll down) accusing it of being a Gavin Newsom love machine, to which the Sentinel accused Peskin of just being sore that the Sentinel broke the news of a secret Supervisor powwow he didn't want out. So what's going on? Is this some kind of H. Brown-related fallout? An upsurge in anti-Newsom sentiment? An increased call for media accountability for the holiday season? Or did we just lose our copy of the memo announcing that it's Everyone Hates Pat month? ...

Last night's Police Commission meeting [RealPlayer] started off with rollicking public comment from officers and the public. Officers were particularly upset over the termination of officer Anthony Nelson. Nelson was terminated after breaking the arm of an anti-war protestor and then filing a report with erroneous information about the circumstances. One of the two commissioners who voted against his termination was Peter Keane, who is also the dean of the law school at Golden......

Sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity to go all Drudge on this one. Hot on the heels of settling his civil suit, Gerardo Sandoval seems to be telling anyone who'll listen that he wants Mabel Teng's old job at the City Assessor's office. Friend of SFist Alex Clemens at the Usual Suspects (he and Pat Murphy can fight over who scooped whom amongst themselves) sent the following report and analysis: Sandoval is alerting people to......

We're so excited to hear that Alex Clemens, the dude who had the genius idea to buy up the ad space on the back of Frank Chu's sign, will be appearing on the next Real World [PDF] along with the rest of the Barbary Coast Consulting crew. From the press release: “We’re giving these city slickers one bed, an intermittently functioning sink, and a variety of ‘colorful’ drop-in guests from the neighborhood,” said Real......

Alex Clemens of San Francisco Usual Suspects posted a link on Friday to a new website which we found on Chris Nolan's Politics from Left to Right. Looks like the documentary by producers Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw, which was mentioned in Tad Friend's bit of kudos-slathering about Gavin Newsom [PDF link from Usual Suspects], now has their website and trailer up. Rush to the Civil Altar, a documentary about our Winter of Love,......

Adriel Hampton reports on his blog that Alex Clemens, the mastermind behind SF politics must-see site Usual Suspects, has confessed that he's bought ad space on the back of Frank Chiu's "Impeach Clinton/12 Galaxies" sign for his company, Barbary Coast Consulting. When accused of taking unfair advantage of an obviously-sick man, Clemens unblinkingly responds that Chiu has been taking ads for some time and that Chiu should at least make some money promoting his zegnatronic messages. ("Anytime someone says 'I saw your ad on Frank Chiu's sign,' he gets a $1 bonus.") While we're not entirely convinced of Clemens' humanitarian instincts, there's certainly no denying that Chiu's got good local coverage. Plus, the ad is awesome: "Creative Communication for 10 of the 12 Galaxies. Serving all 12 by 2007, honest." ...