Gavin Newsom is off and working, eyeing the White Home as he enters the far flip and his remaining yr as California governor.
The monitor report for California Democrats and the presidency is just not an excellent one. Within the almost 250 years of those United States, not one Left Coast Democrat has ever been elected president. Kamala Harris is simply the most recent to fail. (Twice.)
Can Newsom break that shedding streak and make historical past in 2028?
Trustworthy readers of this column — each of you — definitely understand how I really feel.
Garry South disagrees.
The veteran Democratic marketing campaign strategist, who has been described as possessing “a pile-driving persona and blast furnace of a mouth” — by me, really — has by no means lacked for sturdy and colourful opinions. Right here, in an e-mail change, we hash out our variations.
Barabak: You as soon as labored for Newsom, did you not?
South: Certainly I did. I used to be a senior strategist in his first marketing campaign for governor. It lasted 15 months in 2008 and 2009. He exited the race after we couldn’t work out methods to beat Jerry Brown in a closed Democratic main.
I occur to be the one who wrote the catchy punch line for Newsom’s speech to the state Democratic conference in 2009, that the race was a alternative between “a stroll down reminiscence lane vs. a dash into the long run.”
We ended up on reminiscence lane.
Barabak: Do you continue to advise Newsom, or members of his political workforce?
South: No, although he and I are in common contact and have been since his days as lieutenant governor. I do know a lot of his workers and consultants, however don’t work with them in any paid capability. Additionally, the governor’s sister and I are buddies.
Barabak: You noticed Newsom up shut in that 2010 race. What are his strengths as a campaigner?
South: Newsom is a masterful communicator, has nice stage presence, cuts a commanding determine and might maintain an viewers within the palm of his hand when he’s actually on. He has a thoughts like a metal entice and by no means forgets something he’s informed or reads.
I’ve at all times attributed his superb recall to the battle he has studying, as a consequence of his lifelong battle with extreme dyslexia. As a result of it’s such an arduous effort for Newsom to learn, what he does learn is emblazoned on his thoughts in seeming perpetuity.
Barabak: Demerits, or weaknesses?
South: Given his exceptional command of details and knowledge and mastery of the English language, he can typically run on too lengthy. Throughout that first gubernatorial marketing campaign, when he was nonetheless mayor of San Francisco, he as soon as gave a seven-hour State of the Metropolis tackle.
Barabak: Fidel Castro should have been impressed!
South: It wasn’t as dangerous as sounds: It was damaged into 10 “Webisodes” on his YouTube channel. However nonetheless …
Barabak: So let’s get to it. I believe Newsom’s probabilities of being elected president are someplace between slim and none — and slim was final seen alongside I-5, in San Ysidro, thumbing a journey to Mexico.
You don’t agree.
South: I don’t agree in any respect. I believe you’re underestimating the Trumpian modifications wrought (rot?) upon our political system over the previous 10 years.
The election of Trump, a convicted felon, not as soon as however twice, has actually blown to hell the traditional paradigms we’ve had for many years when it comes to how we assess the viability of presidential candidates — what state they’re from, their age, if they’ve glitches of their private or skilled life.
To not point out, oh, their legal report, if they’ve one.
The American individuals really elected for a second time period a man who fomented a insurrection towards his personal nation when he was president the primary time, together with an armed assault on our personal nationwide capitol by which a girl was killed and for which he was rightly impeached. It’s silly to not conclude that the outdated guidelines, the outdated typical knowledge about what voters will settle for and what they won’t, are out the window for good.
It additionally doesn’t shock me that you simply pooh-pooh Newsom’s prospects. It’s typical of the home-state reporting corps to guffaw when their very own governor is touted as a presidential candidate.
One, familiarity breeds contempt. Two, a prophet is with out honor in his personal nation.
Barabak: I’ll grant you a few factors.
I’m sufficiently old to recollect when buddies within the Arkansas political press corps scoffed on the notion their governor, the phenomenally gifted however wildly undisciplined Invoice Clinton, may ever be elected president.
I additionally bear in mind these outdated Clairol hair-color adverts: “The nearer he will get … the higher you look!” (Google it, youngsters). It’s exactly the alternative in the case of presidential hopefuls and the reporters who cowl them day-in, day-out.
And also you’re definitely right, the character of what constitutes scandal, or disqualifies a presidential candidate, has drastically modified within the Trump period.
All of that mentioned, sure fundamentals stay the identical. Reminiscent of that 1992 Clinton marketing campaign, it’s nonetheless the financial system, silly. Or, put one other method, it’s about of us’ lived expertise, their financial safety, or lack thereof, and private well-being.
Newsom is, for the second, a favourite among the many chattering political class and on-line activists as a result of a) these are the oldsters who’re already engaged within the 2028 race and b) a lot of them thrill to his Trumpian takedowns of the president on social media.
When the main target turns to issues affecting voters’ means to pay for housing, healthcare, groceries, utility payments and to simply get by, Newsom’s opponents could have a heyday trashing him and California’s steep costs, homelessness and shrinking center class.
Kamala Harris twice bid unsuccessfully for the White Home. Her losses stored alive an unbroken string of losses by Left Coast Democrats.
(Kent Nishimura / Getty Photographs)
South: It’s not simply the chattering class.
Newsom’s now the main candidate amongst rank-and-file Democrats. That they had been pleading — begging — for years that some Democratic chief step out of the field, step as much as the plate, and combat again, giving Trump a dose of his personal medication. Newsom has been assembly that demand with wit, ability and doggedness — not simply on social media, however by way of passage of Proposition 50, the Democratic gerrymandering measure.
And Democrats acknowledge and recognize it
Barabak: Hmmm. Maybe I’m considerably missing in creativeness, however I simply can’t image a world the place Democrats say, “Hey, the answer to our soul-crushing defeat in 2024 is to appoint one other well-coiffed, left-leaning product of that bastion of homespun Americana, San Francisco.”
South: Uh, People twice now have elected a president not simply from New York Metropolis, however who lived in an ivory tower in Manhattan, in a penthouse with a 24-carat-gold entrance door (and, allegedly, gold-plated bathroom seats). You assume Manhattan is a soupçon extra consultant of center America than San Francisco?
Like I mentioned, state of origin is much less necessary now after the Trump precedent.
Barabak: Trump was a larger-than-life — or at the very least larger-than-Manhattan — celeb. Geography wasn’t an obstacle as a result of he had — and has — a exceptional means, far past my reckoning, to current himself as a tribune of the working class, the downtrodden and economically struggling People, at the same time as he spreads gold leaf round himself like a child with a can of Foolish String.
Talking of Kamala Harris, she hasn’t dominated out a 3rd attempt on the White Home in 2028. The place would you place your cash in a Newsom-Harris throwdown for the Democratic nomination? How about Harris within the common election, towards whomever Republicans select?
South: Harris working once more in 2028 could be like Michael Dukakis making a second attempt for president in 1992. My God, she not solely misplaced each swing state, and the electoral faculty by almost 100 votes, Harris additionally misplaced the favored vote — the primary Democrat to take action in 20 years.
If she doesn’t need to embarrass herself, she ought to hearken to her home-state voters, who within the newest CBS Information/YouGov ballot mentioned she shouldn’t run once more — by a margin of 69-31. (Even 52% of Democrats mentioned no). She’s yesterday’s information.
Barabak: Appears as if you are feeling one stroll down reminiscence lane was fairly sufficient. We’ll see if Harris — and, extra pertinently, Democratic main voters — agree.
