Cothran

I am well acquainted with the reanimation of political corpses, and with this one all you have to do is whisper in her ear. She must have immediately seen visions of Roman glory in her head: The press still calls me! Rob Morse called me! I still have that old magic! The press wouldn't call me otherwise!

While Alioto was musing inside her tomb about a mayoral run, the hacks at the Channel 2 morning news show, Mornings on Two -- which, by the way, I am hopelessly addicted to; I think it has something to do with Sal Castaneda hypnotizing me with those eyes of his -- were reading Morse's column and deciding to invite Angela down to have a chat.

I'm guessing, but the conversation could have gone something like, "Hey, Angela, if your skin hasn't completely fallen off your bones, would you come down and sit across from poor brain-damaged Ross McGowan as he rephrases the same question ('Are you running for mayor?') over and over again for a few minutes, so we can pretend we are paying attention to the mayor's race, and poor Ross can pretend for a few minutes that he doesn't actually have a sick crush on Willie Brown?"

This, of course, set the corpse's rotting flesh a-tingle:
People do want me! Television wants me! Rob Morse wants me! Ross McGowan wants me! Those rumors about him and Willie Brown aren't true!

So the corpse made her television appearance.
(Now we all know this corpse stuff is just a joke, right? It's a rhetorical device. But, oh sweet Jesus, did you see Angela on the TV? One word: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Anyway, the corpse left the Channel 2 studios and headed right down to City Hall, where it picked up and signed papers announcing an intention to run for mayor. While Angela was down at City Hall she nearly ran into Capt. Richard Cairns of the SFPD taking out papers of his own.

Now you gotta know what that is all about.
Cairns is buddies with evil political reanimator Jack Davis. Davis is currently, unofficially running Willie Brown's campaign. Davis, it seems, needs to get a spoiler in the race to suck votes from the candidates on Brown's right, Jordan and Reilly. So Davis gets his buddy Cairns to join the race.

And that's how we develop mayoral candidates in San Francisco, folks.
Sorry-ass media hacks prod the dead and the dumb with sticks until they react. Then sleazy political consultants manipulate the process for their own ends.

I may be overreacting here, but isn't it time to get some pitchforks and torches together and have an enraged villager party?

George Cothran (gcothran@sfweekly.com) can be reached at SF Weekly, 185 Berry, Suite 3800, San Francisco,