Cox, Newsom see differently at Brown’s breakfast talk
California’s two candidates for governor had agreed to speak in the same room for probably the last time Tuesday at a breakfast hosted by former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
It wouldn’t be a debate — there has only been one of those — but at least they would be speaking one after the other.
Democrat Gavin Newsom won a coin toss to see who would speak first. Brown, now a Chronicle columnist, introduced him. The crowd cheered. Newsom was nowhere to be found.
“What do you mean, he’s not here yet?” Brown said to the audience of 1,000 people in a Fairmont Hotel ballroom. So Republican John Cox went first.
“Welcome to my world,” Cox said, a nod to his
desire to debate more often. “Maybe we’ll have the first governor who wants to be elected by absentia.”
Later, Brown told the audience that the lieutenant governor had opted earlier to go second, “and I didn’t get the word.”
Regardless of when he spoke, Cox was destined to face a tough crowd. Brown’s annual breakfast attracts a who’s who of Democratic officeholders and power brokers, and this batch reacted with tepid applause as Cox let loose with a version of his stump speech aimed largely at those in the room.
“The political class in this state, the interest groups that run Sacramento — as well as my opponent — have made this state virtually unaffordable and unlivable for the average forgotten, hard-working Californian,” Cox said.
He bemoaned the state’s high poverty rate, skyrocketing homeless population and declining public schools as “a situation (that) is unsustainable.”
“We need to have courage,” Cox said, mocking Newsom’s “courage for a change” campaign slogan. “We need to have courage to acknowledge that the leadership of this state has not met the expectations of the people. Our leadership has not managed this state very well.”
Standing just a few feet from San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Cox decried “the human waste, the hypodermic needles, the people with no hope” on the streets “of this beautiful city.”
“It’s not compassionate. I’m sorry, it’s just not compassionate to let people sleep on the street.” Cox said. “Giving them free needles and a place to shoot up is not what I’d do for my children if they were in trouble. I would get them help.”
Newsom rebutted Cox’s bleak appraisal of California, saying, “I want to make a case for our state because I’m proud of California.”
He touted the economic comeback that Gov. Jerry Brown presided over after taking office in 2011, “when the state was struggling” with a $27 billion budget deficit and 12 percent unemployment.
“People thought our future was behind us, not in front of us,” Newsom said.
Now, he said, the state has a budget surplus, a 4.1 percent unemployment rate and strong economic growth.
“We’re resilient as a state,” Newsom added. “We recovered. We adapted. We’re stronger now than ever.”
But with recent polls showing Newsom with a double-digit lead heading into election day, his campaign is no longer about Cox — if it ever was.
About 200 people gathered at City Hall after the breakfast to see Newsom off on a multiday bus trip that will take him across the state, to campaign stops with Democrats who are facing tough races.
His bus, parked across the street from City Hall, was covered in a huge design reading “VOTE,” with a much smaller “Gavin for Governor” tucked inside the “O.”
“Instead of putting my name on my bus, I wanted to say what this is all about: ‘Vote’ ” Newsom said.
The former San Francisco mayor took advantage of the moment to call out President Trump for what he said were the president’s nonstop attacks on California.
“We need to send a message to repudiate the president,” he told the crowd. “But California is not just about resistance. California is a positive alternative to what’s going on in the country.”
On the bus ride to campaign stops in Merced and Fresno, Newsom made no apology for virtually ignoring his GOP rival during the campaign. From the time Cox said he was 100 percent behind Trump, “it was very easy to make that point of distinction,” he said.