Eric Jaye, Mayor Gavin Newsom's campaign manager, quit Newsom's gubernatorial campaign today. Why? Who knows why, exactly. Jaye, who has seen Newsom through Care Not Cash to "whether you like it or not" to battles with sweet Peruvian flake, "has been pushing a campaign strategy that would keep Newsom in the public's eye with media events on everything from green energy to food policy," report Matier & Ross. But Newsom's new strategist, Garry South, former adviser to failed Gov. Gray Davis, M&R go on to say, "has been advocating a more traditional approach that would depend on Newsom working the phones and raising money." more ›

KGO7's Dan Noyes has it that cocaine-and-booze-free Ruby Tourk has already written two chapters of a hopefully-soon-to-be-published self-help book, which will detail her “‘hitting rock bottom with Newsom after 20 years of alcoholism and coke use.’” more ›

--Our sources report that only like four non-media people showed up for the anti-Jerry Falwell protest (picture above, and two more pictures after the jump). more ›

Before we get into the Jennifer Siebel links of the day, we'd like to put a theory out there. Remember Chron writer C.W. Nevius's theory that men were upset about Newsom's behavior with Ruby Rippey-Tourk because it violated the man code? (which is, in short, don't mess around with a friend's woman.) more ›

We're launching a new sporadic political column, following Fiona Ma and Janet Reilly's battle for the 12th Assembly District. If anyone's got a better name for this column, post it in the comments! Anyone who's played one-on-one against Mayor Newsom's gotta have some game! Look at the fire in Fiona's eyes in this picture! Bring! It! On! After a fairly moribund start (for our purposes, "moribund" means "not too terribly hilarious in that car-wreck kind of way that we like") to the SF West-siiiiiide State Assembly race between Fiona Ma and Tori Spelling Janet Reilly (wife of the famously-aggressive political strategist Clint Reilly), where the candidates have agreed on almost everything except school exit exams and the death penalty (Fiona is against the first and for the second, Reilly is the opposite), things heated up today with the first use of the word "Nixonian." Yes! According to Ma, Reilly's people faked her name on IRS filings and have been falsely telling everyone that she was the treasurer in the 2002 campaign for Mike Rounds, the anti-abortion South Dakota governor. Ma is pro-choice. The Examiner did some research and found out that the Reilly campaign has been emailing Mark Leno and NARAL about it. Reilly's people (through Eric Jaye, Newsom's old campaign guy) now say they didn't fake anything, don't know if it's correct or not, and are now trying to find out from the IRS why Fiona's name is listed on those forms. Why would Fiona Ma be working on a campaign in South Dakota, anyways? We can barely get her to work on campaigns in San Francisco! more ›

Kevin Shelley still has his job � do you have yours? It�s time for a SunsetGate update! more ›