When Rudy Giuliani paid a visit to Broadway Grill in Burlingame last spring, he was the frontrunner in the race to capture the Republican nomination and riding high in the polls. (This poll from April 2007 gives a sense of his status at the time.)

As of Wednesday, he was out of the presidential race, his campaign having suffered a collapse of historic proportions.

There are lots of theories as to what happened, chief among them Giuliani’s unusual strategy of focusing on Florida rather than some of the earlier contests.

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[Updated Tuesday, Oct. 16, at 10:30 a.m. See below.]

The Times ran an article Wednesday reporting that veteran Bay Area traffic announcer Joe McConnell (pictured to the right) was caught stealing one of Burlingame City Council candidate Gene Condon’s campaign signs Monday by Condon himself.

McConnell, whose reports for for Metro Networks are broadcast on such stations as KGO-AM and KQED-FM, was questioned by Burlingame police Monday night after Condon, one of five candidates in the November race, saw him remove a sign from a property on California Drive near Rosedale Avenue, followed him home and then called in the fuzz.

The story was noteworthy because McConnell is the husband of Geraldine O’Connor, former spokeswoman for Assemblyman Gene Mullin, D-San Mateo, and co-chair of the campaign for one of Condon’s opponents, Planning Commissioner Jerry Deal.

The story was weird because, in a telephone conversation with the Times, McConnell didn’t seem the least bit a) contrite for having possibly committed the crime of theft or b) embarassed for having caused Deal a public relations headache.

But due to the restrictions of time and space, we weren’t able to share all the juicy details from our conversations with Condon, Deal and McConnell. Well, that’s why we have the Insider. But before we get to that, make sure you’re sitting down, because the sign-stealing scandal has widened!

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