Mayor Gavin Newsom opened his re-election headquarters Sunday with another apology for an affair he had with the wife of a veteran aide.
Newsom said he wanted to apologize to “someone I care deeply about” — Alex Tourk, who resigned as Newsom’s campaign manager after confronting the mayor about the affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk.
“What I did was wrong. And for the rest of my life I’m going to have to deal with that,” Newsom told a room packed with hundreds of supporters.
Newsom, 39, admitted to the affair and days later announced he would enter counseling for alcohol use. On Sunday, he showed no sign of backing down from the race to get re-elected in November.
“I am not going away,” he said, stirring a huge cheer.
Newsom began attending treatment sessions this week at the Delancey Street Foundation, a program that does not rely on the 12-step philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous but works to address the underlying reasons for excessive drinking.
Newsom’s political rivals have questioned whether the mayor’s personal problems have left him capable of doing his job. And reports have surfaced that some major donors could be abandoning the mayor out of disapproval for his actions.
