Gavin Newsom, “Frontrunner” (?)
What The Obsession with Gavin Newsom says about Democratic Desperation and NOT Democratic Readiness.
I know there is a paywall, but this Atlantic article, “The Front-Runner” about California Governor Gavin Newsom being the Democratic “front-runner” for the 2028 Democratic nomination bothered me, and it was yet another reminder that Democrats may still not fully understand the moment we’re in.
Parts of it and Newsom, I agree with.
Democrats are weak – both in terms of how their own voters perceive them, and in how they look relative to Republicans, despite generally supporting the policies Americans say they want.
Democrats have to meet the moment with things like Newsom’s Proposition 50 that will likely help flip the House in 2026. And his communication style and embrace of pop culture and sports as a part of his appeal is sorely needed inDemocratic politics.
The red flags are everywhere.
“Given the choice,” he tells me, summing up a crucial Clinton insight—one many Democrats still can’t quite seem to grasp—“the American people always support strong and wrong, versus, weak and right.”
“His idea of strength includes a willingness to fight dirty, going lower than Barack Obama could ever imagine, and so his social-media accounts bristle with memes about Donald Trump’s bruised hand and advancing age.”
“He also has a high tolerance for risk. Proposition 50, a ballot measure that has redrawn California’s congressional map in favor of the Democrats, was seen as a toss-up when he first backed it last year. The new map was a blatant partisan gerrymander, a departure from the time when the Democrats used to talk up the fairness of independent commissions. Morally wrong, maybe—but do you want to win back the House or not? Prop 50 passed by a two-to-one margin.”
“He’s much given to—like Trump, in a way—making these grand pronouncements about how something’s the greatest ever, how this is going to be the most wonderful thing,” the veteran California journalist Jerry Roberts told me, “and then his record is littered with failures.”
I don’t need “strong and wrong” for 2028 – show me “strong and right” where you actually deliver. The fact that “fight[ing] dirty” is just talking plainly about a twice-failed, formerly impeached lame duck President tells me more about the cuck politics of national Democrats than anything else.
This doesn’t make Newsom strong or unique; he’s just where we all are with the bullshit we’re seeing.
The fact that he wielded the power he had as a Governor for Proposition 50, and that other Democratic governors are doing as well – isn’t “risky.”
It’s doing your fucking job.
It’s not a case for a front-runner in the least, and polling two years out is an indication of nothing.
A track record of Newsom in his actual job as Governor of California of grand announcements and policy failures should concern us all.
Whoever has to clean up the mess Donald Trump is creating must actually show that he or she has delivered something other than tweets in all caps.
I know Beshear has stabilized rural healthcare in deeply red Kentucky.
Shaprio helped rebuild a collapsed bridge in 12 days and is lowering utility bills in a critical swing state inPennsylvania.
Pritzker has fixed Illinois’ budget while investing in people and fixing the roads.
Wes Moore is actually building housing in Maryland and rebuilding the Key Bridge after it collapsed.
We have a bench and options.
We should have learned our lesson from anointing frontrunners instead of letting primaries and the politics play out.
A part of the Trump Derangement Syndrome Democrats suffer from is this desperate need to find the next great person instead of investing in the infrastructure that allows Republicans to plug and play no matter who leads them.
Fixating over someone who talks tough but doesn’t deliver ain’t it. And when voters seek authenticity over almost anything else (the real lesson of Trump), a guy who swings where the wind blows ain’t it.
The fact that calling Trump who he is and speaking plainly tells me more about how bad other Democrats are –not about how Newsom is the right fit for the moment.
Our party is broke. Neither Senator Schumer or Leader Jeffries inspires hope or confidence that we have the leadership we need in Washington if they’re Majority Leader or Speaker.
We have no real think tanks like the America First Policy Institute that can produce something like Project 2025 – or the politicians or bureaucrats or the bureaucratic training grounds to train the people who could actually deliver it.
Our state and local Democratic Party apparatus in most parts of the country is broke and broken.
Our media ecosystem and echo chambers pale in comparison to theirs, so even when we’re right, our voters never know about it, their voters can easily dismiss it, and most people never hear about it.
And, if even there is a “blue wave” in 2026, not a single person can tell me what we’d do with it.
I don’t know Gavin Newsom. But what I do know is that anointing a front-runner – with polling suggesting that people are thinking this way, tells me more about our desperation than what the plan should be moving forward.
No single person or candidate can fix this, and us fixating on a front-runner when the house is burning around us reminds me that we didn’t really learn what we needed to do in 2024.
It’s not enough to win elections.
You have to win, you have to win with the right people who can show you they can deliver, and most importantly, we have to build the infrastructure to keep winning.
Gavin represents strength and the ability to tell it like it is! Nice guy mentalities have got the democrats no where. He refuses to play follow the leader, He is the Leader
No absolutely not he’s part of the problem