Newsom is running. He just doesn’t want you to know
SAN DIEGO >> It’s time to discuss the worst-kept secret in politics: California Gov. Gavin Newsom is running for president.
I’m not talking about 2028, after he has left office and people start forgetting his name. In presidential politics, former governors don’t fare as well as current ones. Besides, a lot could happen between now and then.
Nor am I predicting that the 55-year-old Democrat will enter the race that is already underway and lead an insurrection against President Joe Biden. Newsom is too much of a team player for a move like that.
I’m just saying what is obvious to anyone who has halfway been paying attention to Newsom’s words and deeds over the past couple of years: He is already running for president.
Consider Newsom’s March 2021 appearance on ABC’s “The View.” He apologized for not adhering to covid restrictions that he helped impose in the Golden State, bashed MAGA supporters who led the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and insisted he was worried about an attempt by California voters to recall him.
Newsom went on to easily defeat that recall attempt six months later. And in 2022 he was on the statewide ballot again and cruised to reelection. He has to be bored with California politics at this point.
Still, Newsom is a clever one. He leads a state that has 55 electoral votes — or 20% of the 270 needed to win the White House. If he jumped into this race and challenged Biden, it would be a game-changer. But it could also be a career-ender.
Newsom has said that he won’t compete in 2024, even if Biden doesn’t follow through on running for reelection. But in politics, things change. Besides, Newsom is a political animal who probably wouldn’t have the impulse control to sit out this campaign if Biden bowed out.
Newsom also thirsts to be the center of attention. So, as we speak, he’s running a kind of stealth campaign the likes of which most political observers have never seen. He’s raising millions of dollars and doling it out to other Democratic candidates across the country to gain favor.
He is building a full-out presidential campaign with all the bells and whistles. It’ll stay under wraps until it’s time for its big reveal. Then it’ll pop out of the oven, fully baked and ready to serve up to America.
Some political observers even speculate that Biden could step aside at some point and pass the baton to the California governor. The two communicate regularly, according to Newsom.
The consummate politician, Newsom doesn’t do anything by accident. Every statement is planned, and every action is plotted.
Like going after Ron DeSantis, a contender for the 2024
GOP presidential nomination. After the Florida governor shipped a group of undocumented immigrants to California this month, Newsom called the Republican a “small, pathetic man.” And during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Newsom challenged DeSantis to a debate.
Newsom also recently charged into the contentious national dialogue over guns, proposing a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would include mandating universal background checks, raising to 21 the age at which someone could buy a firearm, instituting a waiting period to buy a gun and barring civilians from purchasing assault weapons.
At the same time, on other issues, Newsom appears to be moving to the middle. He is increasing spending on state police at a time when Californians — and many other Americans — are worried about rising crime rates. He also seems to be backing away from a controversial proposal for California to pay reparations to Black residents for generations of mistreatment — a plan that he helped set in motion in September 2020 when he signed a bill to create a state task force to study the issue and propose recommendations. In a recent statement to Fox News, Newsom said that Americans must “reconcile our original sin of slavery” but also insisted that “dealing with that legacy is about much more than cash payments.” Now that the task force has completed its work and proposed monetary payouts, it’s unclear what Newsom will do.
This much is clear: Newsom is already in the current contest for the White House. A political thoroughbred, he has been in politics for nearly 30 years. That’s more than enough time to master the game. Newsom was always going to find a way into the 2024 presidential race, sooner or later. And, it appears, he found one.