Save the Giants - a political melodrama: mayor and his business allies are under fire. (San Francisco mayor Frank Jordan)(public uproar against selling the Giants baseball team)

Call it Kabuki theater, San Francisco-style.

A choreographed, center-stage effort to save the Giants from the clutches of St. Petersburg's Suncoast Dome -- or at least convince voters no proverbial stone was left unturned in the attempt -- has been banner headline material for two weeks.

Sparsely attended pep rallies, frequent press conferences, constant cheerleading by the two San Francisco daily newspapers, and a flurry of desperate drives to line up pledges for season tickets have stoked emotions but achieved no results.

Skeptical observers say the drama, which has tracked potential Giants' saviors to the woods of New Hampshire and the outback of North Carolina, is nothing more than grandstanding.

Larry Bush, a speechwriter for former Mayor Art Agnos who now edits the Citi-Report newsletter on city government, calls it pure "political panic" on the part of politicos and their business allies. He said the powers that be are looking for an out, so they can escape blame for the Giants' blowing wind-swept Candlestick for balmy St. Pete.

"There are a lot of guys who weren't there for keeping the Giants when it mattered who are making a mad scramble to save their political backsides," agreed one source, a …