Earth to Burton, Earth to Burton: In comments to the By God LA Times, state Demo party chief John Burton joined in the piling on of Martha Coakley, the humiliated-in-defeat candidate who ingloriously kicked away Ted Kennedy’s Democratic seat – but JoBu draws a Calbuzz penalty flag for a bonehead comment in doing so.
Speaking to the redoubtable duo of Evan Halper and Shane Goldmacher, Burton referenced Coakley’s now-infamous mega-gaffe, in which she incomprehensibly referred to legendary former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling as a “Yankee fan,” freezing in an instant a public image of herself as a suburban matron utterly disconnected from the average concerns of those who follow the Sawx.
Having shot herself in only one foot, she soon finished the job by mocking GOP foe Scott Brown for showing up in the cold to shake hands with hockey fans headed for a Bruins game at Fenway Park on New Year’s Day, at a time when she was, um, on vacation. To wit Burton:
Democratic Party Chairman John Burton said the party’s Senate candidate in Massachusetts, state Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley, was just a bad campaigner.
“Nobody in California that is running for office would take off for a weeklong vacation before the general election after a tough primary, and they probably would be standing out in front of Dodger Stadium or Candlestick Park shaking hands,” he said, alluding to one of Coakley’s widely cited gaffes involving the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
Memo to John: Baseball was last played at Candlestick Park on Sept. 30, 1999, when the dog-ass Dodgers hammered the hometown lads, 9-4. The Giants’ current facility, formerly known as PacBell Park, is now called ATT Park. We’re pretty sure you’ve been there, John, and just don’t remember. Time for your nappy, now.
Red Sox Nation: Amid the millions of trees sacrificed to the cause of explaining the victory of Republican Brown in Massachusetts, the Schilling incident stands out as the single most salient factor in the whole over-analyzed mess. Those inclined to more conventional, if not profound, analysis are directed to this swell four byline tic toc.
For our money though, Lisa Swan at The Faster Times nailed it in a well-reported take on how the Schilling Scandal became Coakley’s Snoopy-in-the-Tank defining moment, which included these comments from Schilling himself:
“It does reflect on an elected official’s relationship with her constituents. I don’t think that somebody who’s lived here their whole life, not understanding the importance of the prominence of the sports teams in this city, it’s a big deal to people,” he said.
“I think it’s another sign of her aloofness, and just the fact that she’s very out of touch, I think, with the people.”
(eMeg memo to staff: Why am I still waiting for that Power Point on the rosters of the Fresno Grizzlies and the Modesto Nuts?!?)
Heathcliff of San Francisco: Maureen Dowd’s kissy-poo column on SF Mayor Gavin Newsom stirred up a lot of cross-chatter about whether or not Prince Gavin had announced to MoDo his impending retirement from politics. Before we even get to that, though, one quick read of Dowd’s piece is all you need to know about why the Prince just couldn’t cut it in a tough, statewide race.
Self-important, self-regarding, self-absorbed and self-pitying, Newsom stops just short of taking to his fainting couch to comfort his sensitive soul from the cruel blows of an unfair world:
“I mean, oh, God,” he said, sipping green tea in his elegant office. “In a couple of years, you’ll see me as the clerk of a wine store.”
Oh, perish the thought. The overweening arrogance, condescension and utter contempt for working people found in that single sentence, and throughout the interview – “I mean, oh, God! ” – is difficult to overstate.
This is a guy who got carried by rich friends to some early success and now thinks the world owes him a ride in a sedan chair, an over-gelled poseur who screwed his best friend’s wife and now wants everyone to feel sorry for him cuz he didn’t have the stones to stick with a campaign he had no business starting in the first place.
We’re just sayin.’
As for the speculation that Newsom is getting out of politics:
“This is it. God bless. It was fun while it lasted,” he said of his career, with a rueful smile. “Guys like me don’t necessarily progress very far, which is fine.”
Yuck. SF Weekly’s resourceful “Snitch” blog quickly squeezed a damage control quote out of Newsom’s mouthpiece, who insisted that, oh no, the Great Man is in it on behalf of the Little People for the long haul.
He was speaking tongue-in-cheek…He intends to have a very active career in public service after he completes his second term as mayor. … His point when he says things like that is that he isn’t dependent on politics in the next election, that he can stand on principle and doesn’t feel a need to compromise his beliefs. (Is it just us, or does that not dependent on politics claptrap remind you of Sarah Palin?)
The Chronicle once again dispatched the reliable Heather Knight, who got stuck cleaning up the mess the last time Newsom summoned a reporter for a national publication to share his thoughts on retirement. In a piece featuring exactly the same hed - “Newsom discusses his future” – she churned out a nice, all-you-need-to-know, 26-word lede:
Nobody seems to know what the future holds for Mayor Gavin Newsom after he’s termed out of office in January 2012 – least of all Newsom himself.
Calbuzz sez: Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, pal.
Must read of the week: In a piece fraught with significance for Bay Area news types, media analyst and occasional Calbuzzer Alan Mutter dissects the pending bankruptcy of Dean Singleton’s MediaNews empire.
Among other things, Mutter’s piece offers new evidence of Hearst Corp.’s blundering since its ill-fated acquisition of the long-lost Old Chron in 2000.
After plowing well over $1 billion into a decade-long effort to salvage its ill-starred purchase of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Hearst Corp. now stands to lose another $317 million in the upcoming bankruptcy of MediaNews Group.
Hearst improbably put money into MediaNews, its direct competitor in northern California, in the hopes of reversing the almost continuous loses it has suffered since stepping up to buy the Chronicle in 2000. Instead of fixing the long-festering problem, Hearst became not just the biggest loser among the equity investors in MediaNews. It will be the only one.
The other big news from Fifth and Mish this week: its new, modified limited hangout print wall plan to keep some of their best stuff – like the Sunday Matier and Ross column – off the web until after the paper is printed, a head-in-the-sand idea if there ever was one, as the Oracle of Cruickshank made perfectly clear.
Just breathe into the bag: Our pal Steve Maviglio is usually pretty well-informed, which is why we made a couple calls about his post suggesting that the Coakley debacle will somehow trigger DiFi’s entry into the California governor’s race.
All but picking out the campaign signs and bumper strips for Herself, Maviglio spun his scenario deep into the heavens, going so far as to suggest a reprise of Feinstein’s 1992 Thelma and Louise act with Barbara Boxer.
Sorry man, it ain’t happening.
Scoop of the week: Nice work by Greg Lucas of California’s Capitol in scoring a copy of the internal Power Point presentation being used to try to reach agreement on a package of government reforms among the members of the two-house Special Committee on Fixing Everything in Sacramento in a Jiffy. Lucas reports:
A hearing of the Senate and Assembly Select Committees on Improving State Government to discuss the proposals was canceled January 19, apparently because of a lack of agreement over items on the list.
Howz that whole consensus thing workin’ for ya?
Rants and raves: Amid a shortage of MSM reporting about the epic legal battle between eBay and Craigslist, political junkies wanting to track Meg Whitman’s role in the messy litigation can rely on J
During a live interview with GOP rival Steve Poizner, who dropped by the studio a few weeks back while in town to speak to Bakersfield’s Chamber of Commerce, the two yakkers spilled the beans about eMeg’s shyness, after a few warm-up yuks about how much dough she is pouring into radio ads.
students, and much to do with special interest Capitol palace intrigue completely disconnected from the real lives of real people. Amid an endless stream of booorrrring MSM process stories and a package of press releases from Speaker Karen Bass big enough to choke a horse, Dan Walters cut to the chase, exposing the whole fuss as nothing but 
Former L.A. Times City Editor Bill Boyarsky has written a new book telling the extraordinary story of how that newspaper and its owners shaped the history of Southern California – and it’s terrific.
thinking how much I’d have hated to have to ask this man for a raise. His steely determination and Harry Chandler’s cunning and business skill – combined with a vision they shared – helped transform L.A. from a dusty frontier town to a huge metropolis that extends far beyond the city boundaries into the vast area of the Southland. Norman (Chandler) made the paper into a profitable enterprise. His son, Otis, made the Los Angeles Times a great newspaper that was even more profitable.”
For much of its history, the Times “was not only a right-wing rag, it was a boring right-wing rag,” Boyarsky said. “The whole paper was a publicity machine for L.A.-oriented promotional projects.”
parallel tales of the paper and the region, from water and land grabs, racism, political and police corruption to fanatical anti-union crusades, the murderous 1910 bombing of the Times building and Otis Chandler’s drive to redeem the past by turning the Times into a world class paper – at least until rival family members seized control.
As reported in “Inventing L.A.,” Chandler’s words are worth recounting:
he Flash: Jon Fleischman, who may be the hardest working blogger in show business, scooped the world at 4:09 p.m. Monday, citing “one of my better ‘insider sources’” to post 
