Saying his “young family” and his day job were bigger priorities, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom pulled out of the race for California governor today.

Newsom was once a Democratic Party rising star. Then:

• his 2004 gay marriage fiat handed right-wingers an issue to organize around, and some say it helped send George Bush to the White house for a second term.
• His marriage to TV news reporter Kimberly Guilfoyle fell apart at the beginning of 2005.
• In early 2007, he admitted an affair with his campaign manager’s wife, and a problem with alcohol.
• His “it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not” taunting was successfully used against gay marriage by Prop. 8 backers in 2008.

And then in April this year he announced he was running for governor. So we see how well that went.

Newsom’s second term as San Francisco mayor lasts through 2011.

The mayor, every member of the Board of Supervisors, and several other elected officials take a 2.4% pay cut with the just-signed budget for the city.

Police have arrested a suspect in the series of car fires that struck the city last week, a 62-year-old homeless woman. She might also be responsible for the porta-potty fires that broke out several months ago.

The Eddie Bauer business is now the property of a San Francisco firm called Golden Gate Capital Partners, though its corporate headquarters will continue to be in Bellevue, Washington.

The California governor’s race is the subject of an upcoming article in the NYT Magazine, listing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as “among the colorful candidates.”

The Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, a local political institution whose endorsement is a perennial must-have for San Francisco Democrats, has received a letter from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in which he announces his opposition to the gay marriage ban amendment that will appear on California ballots this fall.

And in other political news, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has filed papers to begin a bid for Governor for the 2010 election. Newsom, forever closely linked to the gay marriage issue ever since he opened the floodgates for gay marriages in San Francisco in 2004, was vindicated earlier this year when the California Supreme Court ruled that gay marriages were constitutional in the state.

A year after Meraki, a startup with a grassroots model for blanketing an area with wi-fi signals, gained its first foothold in San Francisco, and ten months after the city’s first attempt with Earthlink collapsed, Mayor Gavin Newson is supporting Meraki’s model as a way to get wi-fi to a majority of San Franciscans.

When I spoke to Meraki last summer, their intention was to pay for the free wi-fi by putting an advertising bar in the browser of everyone who uses them to connect to the internets. I’ve never been able to find one of their signals, so I don’t know if they’re still doing that.

See my original post from July 2007 for an explanation of their scheme.

One of the photos accompanying today’s Chronicle story on SFGate.com about the gay marriage decision gives a glimpse into San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s desk drawer: Altoids, and a large bottle of something that looks like Rolaids, or maybe aspirin. Both standard equipment for a busy politician. (What, no hair spray?)