Gavin Newsom

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made official Tuesday what Californians who have watched him traverse the state for months already suspected -- he is running for governor in 2010. As might be expected for a campaign that has tried to maximize its presence on social networking websites, Newsom made the announcement electronically: "Today, I am announcing, via Tweet, my candidacy for governor," the Democrat's website declared. "It's official -- running for Gov of CA.

Gavin Newsom taunted rival Jerry Brown on Saturday by framing the Democratic race for governor as a choice between "a stroll down memory lane" with a man who held the job in the 1970s and a "sprint into the future" with San Francisco's mayor. Newsom avoided mentioning Brown's name in remarks to several thousand Democrats at a party gathering. But it was lost on no one that he was jabbing the 71-year-old attorney general who hopes to reclaim the job of governor that he first won in 1974.

The pictures that dominated the news last week formed two parallel realities. In one, Teddy Kennedy's face was young and unlined, his jaw taut, his bearing vibrant, as he was when he campaigned for his brothers and when he ran for president, with one of his final victories the 1980 Democratic primary in California. In another, the Massachusetts senator was grayed and stooped, if still smiling, as he was when longevity helped him forge a stunning array of accomplishments in the United States Senate.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was a contender to be the next governor of California, announced today that he is quitting the race. Newsom is withdrawing from the Democratic primary amid lackluster poll numbers and meager fund-raising receipts. His move leaves state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who is expected to run even though he has not officially entered the race, with little opposition in the Democratic primary. "It is with great regret I announce today that I am withdrawing from the race for governor of California," Newsom said in a statement.

The matter was urgent, said Mayor Gavin Newsom, the situation intolerable. A group of San Francisco police officers had produced videos making fun of women, gays, blacks and other minorities -- rough-house humor intended for laughs at the station house. "It is shameful. It is offensive," Newsom told reporters summoned to City Hall soon after the videos surfaced. "It is sexist, it is homophobic and it is racist. We're going to make sure that it ends." With his police chief standing sternly by, Newsom announced formation of a blue-ribbon panel to undertake a top-to-bottom review of the San Francisco Police Department.

For a man prone to belittling politicians, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco is proving to be a deft politician. In his run for governor, he is summoning all the skills he can to shed the political baggage of his hometown, where taming a rowdy parade is the sort of thing that can set off a popular backlash. He is known outside San Francisco for one thing above all: his renegade order legalizing same-sex marriage in 2004.

Gavin Newsom may be running for governor of California, but "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest had something else in mind during his Tuesday morning radio chat with the San Francisco mayor: "What is that product that you put in your slick, shiny hair?" "L'Oreal," Newsom responded. "And it's the Clean Gel. It's the Total Control Clean Gel, because they've got seven or eight products, and the other ones don't work." "I'm talking to a metrosexual," Seacrest marveled.