1. Yes Gavin Newsom is a hero when it comes to marriage equality, but did anyone really think he had a shot leading California?

2. The New York 23rd District special election is nutty, confusing, and has turned into a battle ground for national GOP politics. You know it’s bad when  “G.O.P. Stalinists” appears in a subject heading. Nate Silver crunches the numbers and even he isn’t sure who is going to win.

3. Here in NYC, I’m not sure anyone realizes there is a race for mayor. Looks like it’s going to be an easy night  for Michael Bloomberg.

4. Queerty announces The Advocate is dead. The Advocate says not so fast. Could be the truth is somewhere in the middle. Essentially the changing media landscape impacts gay news but I’m not sure people realize that.

5. Are American runners ready to compete again in the marathon?

6. Has god created a sports fan with more arrogance and hubris than those who root for the Yankees?

7. One more Silver shout out. He looks at Maine and thinks team Yes is  a 5-2 underdog. What do our Maine readers say?

8. Anyone watch Wanda Sykes’ new show?

9. Reason 336 why I love this country: some child gets sent home for wearing blackface and lovers of minstrelsy will quickly throw out the PC charge!

10. Will someone please explain why the love life of Anderson Cooper is of any interest.

Citing “a young family and responsibilities at City Hall,” Newsom announced Friday that he was quitting the gubernatorial race to spend more time with his wife and newborn daughter.

The telegenic mayor tried to connect with voters at town hall forums across the state, but never finessed his message. He excitedly skipped from topic to topic, promising never to blunt his left-leaning positions on gay marriage, the environment, immigration and universal health care to win votes.

Newsom’s campaign hinged on his appeal as a progressive, as he attempted to tap into the currents of change that helped sweep Barack Obama into the White House last year.

But Democrats appeared to prefer the 71-year-old Attorney General Brown, who has formed an exploratory committee but has yet to officially announce he is seeking the nomination.

Brown has maintained a 7-to-1 fundraising edge over Newsom and won heavy financial support from unions, a core Democratic constituency. A Field Poll earlier this month showed Newsom trailing Brown by 20 points among likely Democratic voters.

In a short written statement, Brown wished Newsom and his family well. “Mayor Newsom is a talented public official, and I believe he has a bright future,” he said.

Newsom, 42, sought to portray himself as best-suited to usher in a new era for the state, contrasting his vigorous, youthful image with Brown, whom he portrayed as out of touch.

“He looked at the numbers and the numbers weren’t good, although he’s been on the campaign trail for a while and generated a lot of enthusiasm,” said Democratic party chairman John Burton, a longtime family friend of Newsom’s.

“He would raise money, but it was going out the door. I just think he looked at it and said it doesn’t make sense to do it,” Burton said.

Newsom had a team of highly paid political consultants.

Even an early endorsement from former President Bill Clinton was seen as lukewarm and failed to net the anticipated fundraising windfall from Southern California, despite tickets selling at up to $50,000 apiece.

The Democratic nominee is likely to need a large bank account. Two of the three Republicans seeking their party’s nomination, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, are Silicon Valley millionaires. Poizner, Whitman and former congressman Tom Campbell are all social moderates.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein would be the favorite if she chose to enter the Democratic field, a decision she has said she would not make until early next year.

The Field Poll showed neither Brown nor Newsom came close to having Feinstein’s appeal. Gil Duran, a spokesman for the senator, said she had “no immediate comment” when asked for her reaction to Newsom’s withdrawal from the race.

Burton also dismissed speculation that Feinstein would enter the race, saying the chances were “slim and none and slim left town.”

Newsom’s successes in San Francisco on such issues as providing universal health care and promoting alternative energy became pillars of his gubernatorial campaign, but also reinforced his image as a liberal who might not be able to capture independents and more conservative Democrats.

His administration came under intense criticism last year after three teenage boys escaped from a group home where they were placed by the city, prompting Newsom to reverse the city’s 20-year-old policy of shielding young immigrant offenders from federal deportation under San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy.

State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, chairman of Newsom’s campaign, claimed lackluster fundraising and low poll numbers were not major factors in the mayor’s decision and said nothing went wrong.

Newsom “has a demanding day job and he cares about his young family,” Padilla said. “I personally felt things were going well” with the campaign.

Newsom’s high-profile entry into the race last spring was announced on Twitter, and he kept his supporters updated regularly via his Facebook page. Within minutes of posting his withdrawal announcement on Facebook, hundreds of supporters posted notes, many expressing disappointment.

Newsom is in his second term as mayor of California’s fourth-largest city and is best known for directing city agencies in 2004 to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. While the courts quickly stopped the practice, Newsom’s actions sent the debate over gay marriage to the forefront of California politics, beginning a series of court challenges and ballot initiatives.

Newsom struggled to define himself beyond gay marriage in the rest of the state. In last year’s successful campaign to ban same-sex marriage in California, supporters presented Newsom as the face of gay marriage advocates.

Newsom also entered the governor’s race on the heels of an unseemly affair with the wife of his mayoral campaign manager. After admitting the dalliance in 2007, he sought treatment for a drinking problem.

After winning re-election later that year, he seemed to catch a second wind in office. Last year, he married actress Jennifer Siebel, who gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, last month.

In bowing out of the race, Newsom said he will continue to pursue the issues for which he cares deeply – health care, a cleaner environment, education and equal rights.

“This is not an easy decision,” he said. “But it is one made with the best intentions for my wife, my daughter, the residents of the city and county of San Francisco, and California Democrats.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has ended his campaign to be governor of California. In a press release, Newsom pointed to his family as the reason.

“With a young family and responsibilities at City Hall, I have found it impossible to commit the time required to complete this effort the way it needs to – and should be – done,” the mayor said.

There is  suggestion, however, that the real reasons are because there was no grondswell for Newsom and donors were not willing to give up cash.

More about this later.

The poll released Thursday found that Brown, the former governor, or fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, would fare well against any of the three Republicans.

It found that half of Republican voters had yet to make up their minds in the contest between former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, former congressman Tom Campbell and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

Among Democrats, Brown has a comfortable 20-point lead over Newsom with a quarter of voters undecided. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein would trounce either if she opted to get into the race, the poll found.

The poll underscores the struggles of Newsom’s campaign. He trailed Brown nearly 7-to-1 in fundraising during the first half of the year, even before Brown announced an exploratory committee last week that will allow him to collect larger campaign donations.

Newsom has been campaigning statewide for months as he tries to move beyond his image as the mayor who opened his city to gay marriage. Brown has repeatedly hinted at seeking the office he held from 1975 to 1983, but has so far remained coy.

Newsom is seeking to improve his standing in Southern California, where the poll shows Brown has a commanding 31-point lead. He tried to tap into the Hollywood donor base this week at a Los Angeles fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton.

“The biggest differences in this contest, however, are by age,” pollsters Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field wrote. “Among younger voters in the 18-39 age group, Newsom leads Brown 41 percent to 32 percent. However, Brown leads Newsom by 30 points among voters age 40 to 64, and by a huge 45 points among seniors age 65 or older.”

Older voters are considered among the most reliable to turn out, especially in a primary election.

Thursday’s Field Poll was based on 1,005 interviews with registered voters conducted by phone from Sept. 18 to Oct. 5. It has a sampling error rate of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points for all voters, and a sampling error rate of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for subsamples of Democrats and Republicans.

The poll found that 49 percent of GOP voters are not ready to favor a particular candidate, unsurprising with the election so far away. The primary is next June.

Among those who do have a preference, Whitman and Campbell were in a virtual tie, at 22 percent and 20 percent respectively. Poizner trailed with just 9 percent support among GOP voters surveyed.

The poll found Whitman with a slim lead among Southern California voters and Campbell with a slim lead in the north. Campbell is more popular with voters aged 18 to 49, while Whitman appeals to those ages 50 to 64. Older Republicans were evenly split, the poll found.

Any of the three would have a tough time against a Democratic opponent in the general election, the poll found.

Despite his lackluster fundraising numbers to date, even Newsom has leads of 5 to 9 percent against any of the GOP candidates in the traditionally Democratic state.

Still, Brown and Newsom don’t come closing to having Feinstein’s appeal, according to the poll: 40 percent of Democrats said they would back her if she were to jump in, compared with 27 percent for Brown and 16 percent for Newsom.

She reassured viewers that there is no need to panic because we do have plans in place to deal with potential pandemics… And then mentioned a few Senators who had an active hand in making us less prepared.

Attention elected representatives: Will you for crying out loud STOP announcing that we don’t need to prepare for major disasters? The universe has a sense of humor. The sooner you figure that out, the sooner we can stop getting whomped with bat swarms and Jellonados.

Rachel welcomed Robert Bazell, chief science correspondent for NBC News, to discuss whether we need to panic (not yet), what level of annoyed we should be about the downscaling of prevention funds (medium pissed), and whether the virus is mutating. (Senators and Governors, please, for the love of God, do NOT announce that we don’t need to prepare for mutants.)

One More Thing:
Lebanon, China, Russia, and Indonesia have banned pork imports from countries that have been affected. They have also banned roofing materials as a precaution against shingles.

Dose of Reality
Texas Governor Rick Perry, who less than two weeks ago was Mr. Secession and kept going on TV to sing both parts of the Streisand/Summer “Enough is Enough” duet, just asked the Centers for Disease Control for thousands of courses of flu medication. But not the oppressive doses, or he is out of here!

San Francisco Mayor and California gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom (D) joined Rachel to talk about how political posturing can get in the way of doing the job you’ve been elected for.

Ms. Information
Air Force One and its escort of fighter jets circled low over Manhattan for a photo op on Monday, understandably freaking city residents the hell out. The director of the White House military office has issued an apology and is said to be “re-thinking” next week’s full zombie gear photo op at Hutcheson Elementary School.

Juliano Verbard, convicted sex offender and leader of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary cult, was broken out of prison on the island of Reunion by two of his followers. If your office is running a Future Upsetting News betting pool, I think you know which square to fill in.

Oklahoma picked an official state rock song! State residents voted overwhelmingly for “Do You Realize” by the Flaming Lips! But then the bassist wore a hammer-and-sickle T-shirt to the ceremony! Which made the legislature so angry they voted down the measure that would have made it official!

But now the Governor has stepped in and oh, my God, PULL IT TOGETHER, OKLAHOMA! You want something official? You are officially the only state in the nation doing something less productive than threatening to secede.

The Elephant Not in the Room
Rachel noted that this whole sickening institutionalized torture thing has Republicans in a bit of a muddle.

They don’t want to appear to condone monstrous cruelty to fellow human beings, but they also don’t want to open the door to getting fellow Republicans convicted, so they can’t admit that the torture was torture. Or, um, if it was, it was the kind of torture that a truly civilized nation lets slide.

But then again, they don’t want to be too closely associated with Bush torture policies, because who knows what revolting memos will get released next week? So they’re forced to make noncommittal statements in every possible direction, which gets exhausting because they miss their naps. Not that sleep deprivation is torture or anything.

Rachel welcomed Senator Ron Wyden, (D – Oregon) from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who reassured us that his committee’s investigation is rolling and he supports transparency and prosecution. Which is nice to hear, but I’ll believe it when I see some high-level perp walks.

GOP in Exile
Senator Judd Gregg (R – New Hampshire) is back in the news! God, I’ve missed him. It’s the little things, like the way he loves alligators but hates crocodiles, and can’t stand hugs but loves a good cuddle.

Another reason to look forward to him making the news is that he’s inspired Rachel to a new imitation. She makes him sound like an adolescent weasel.

Gregg is angry that Obama’s health care reform might be brought up in the Senate under budget reconciliation rules, which means the Democrats would only need a majority vote instead of the 60 votes needed to get past a filibuster.

His opinion was the exact reverse back in 2005 when the Republicans were in control. Which seems surprising because he hates contradictions, but actually makes sense because he loves opposites.

Precious Metal
If you want to see what Rachel is like when she goes just a wee bit fangirl, this is your chance.

Lars Ulrich, regular TRMS viewer and drummer for a little band you may have heard of called Metallica, dropped in to talk about music, tolerance, the San Francisco state of mind, and Norwegian death metal.

The 41-year-old Newson and 34-year-old Siebel Newsom will celebrate their second wedding anniversary in July.

Newsom, who is in his second term as mayor, has been raising money and traveling the state in anticipation of running next year to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor.

Newsom gained national attention in 2004 when he began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Some 8,000 couples exchanged vows before the state Supreme Court ruled Newsom had acted illegally.

The court nullified the marriages but said its ruling dealt only with Newsom’s actions.  The justices said at the time the question of whether barring same-sex couples from marrying violated the state’s equal protection clause of its constitution was a separate matter.

Legal challenges on the constitutional question were begun almost immediately. Three separate suits ultimately were wrapped together into a single case.

In March 2005, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco ruled that the law denying same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The ruling was upheld by the California Supreme Court in May 2008 and same-sex couples began exchanging vows again.

Opponents of gay marriage immediately began gathering signatures for a ballot measure to ban gay marriage. Last November the measure, known as Proposition 8, passed with a slim majority.

By that time, some 18,000 same-sex marriages had taken place.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote.  They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. 

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on March 5.

The ad opens with comments made by Newsom at a 2004 news conference after he began allowing marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco.

“This door’s wide open now,” Newsom says in the clip used at the beginning of the ad. “It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”

The commercial goes on to claim that if the amendment fails people would be sued for their beliefs, churches that refuse to marry gay couples would their tax-exempt status, and that elementary school children would be taught about same-sex marriage.

The ad buy cost the group supporting Proposition 8 $10 million.

Newsom called the commercial “classic distraction” and misleading.

“These people make their careers attacking people like me,” Newsom told The Los Angeles Times. “This effort is so much bigger than me. It is about real people. It is about denying people their civil right.”

Yes-on-8 campaign manager Frank Schubert told The Times that the ad underscores the “arrogance” of same-sex marriage proponents.

Last week, opponents of the amendment released their first TV commercials featuring an elderly man and wife who urge voters to not eliminate their gay daughter’s right to marry.

Sam and Julia Thoron, of San Francisco, say in the commercial that they have been married for 46 years and have raised three children.

“My wife and I never treated them differently,” said Sam Thoron in the spot. “We never loved them any differently, and the law shouldn’t treat them differently either.”

The commercial is being aired on television stations throughout the state.

Recent polls California voters are likely to reject the proposed amendment. A Field Poll last week found that only about 38 percent of likely voters would support the measure.

After Newsom began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples the state took the mayor to court arguing he had overstepped his authority and the California Supreme Court agreed. As a result the more than 8,000 marriages that had been performed were declared void. 

The ruling, however, did not directly address the issue of the constitutionality of the state ban on same-sex marriage and LGBT civil rights activists began a separate court action challenging the prohibition.

In May, the court court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to wed violated the California constitution.

Conservative groups began collecting enough signatures for the ballot measure.  It will appear on the November ballot.

Since then, according to state records, supporters of Prop 8 have raised $17.8 million. Opponents of the measure have brought in $12.4 million. Much of the money on both sides has come from out-of-state.

Newsom will host a fundraising event with New York State Gov. David Paterson. Tickets are going for $5,000 per person.

Paterson has been a longtime supporter of marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.  The New York Assembly last year passed a marriage equality bill, but it has stalled in the GOP-dominated Senate.

In 2004, Newsom began allowing marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco. The state took the mayor to court arguing he had overstepped his authority and the California Supreme Court agreed. As a result, more than 8,000 marriages were declared void. 

The ruling, however, did not directly address the issue of the constitutionality of the state ban on same-sex marriage, so LGBT civil rights activists began a separate court action challenging the prohibition.

In May, the court court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to wed violated the California constitution.

Conservative groups began collecting enough signatures for a ballot measure, known as Proposition 8, to amend the constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.  It will appear on the November ballot.

Since then, according to state records, supporters of Prop 8 have raised $17.8 million. Opponents of the measure have brought in $12.4 million. Much of the money on both sides has come from out-of-state.

This week, the “NO on 8″ committee released its first television ad featuring an elderly man and wife who urge voters to not eliminate their gay daughter’s right to marry.

Sam and Julia Thoron of San Francisco say in the commercial that they have been married for 46 years, and raised three children.

“My wife and I never treated them differently,” said Sam Thoron in the spot. “We never loved them any differently, and the law shouldn’t treat them differently either.”

The commercial is being aired on television stations throughout the state.

The battle is also being fought on lawns statewide.  Signs are popping up in front of homes both in favor and against the measure throughout California.

On Monday, director Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw gave $100,000 to the “NO on 8″ campaign, matching a $100,000 donation last week from actor Brad Pitt.

“By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Such discrimination has NO place in California’s constitution, or any other.”

Recent polls suggest that California voters are likely to reject the proposed amendment. A Field Poll last week found that only about 38 percent of likely voters would support the measure.