Let’s begin this column by asking something unusual: before you read much further, stop and listen to this podcast featuring longtime Democratic consultant David Axelrod in conversation with California governor Gavin Newsom.
Here are two reasons why it’s worth your time, if you care about California and the direction it’s headed.
First, the governor’s appearance picks up where he left off last month in his second inaugural address, during which Newsom went out of his way to recast his life’s journey in a more sympathetic light (“I recalled the late 1970s, when I was 10 or 11 years old, a child of divorce and dyslexia, trying to find my bearings”).
Newsom did much the same with Axelrod, again bringing up his reading disability, his late parents’ still-painful parting of ways, and the fact (well, Newsom’s assertion, at least) that he’s little more than a self-made millionaire (forget that Getty family connection) motivated by the nobility of public service while he worships at the altar of Robert F. Kennedy (all covered in this very lengthy New Yorker profile from 2018, the year of Newsom’s first successful gubernatorial run).
Why the sudden tugging of heart strings after nearly two decades in the California spotlight?
It could be as simple as Newsom’s having a book coming out later this year (curious for a politician who insists he’s not a presidential contender . . . as along as President Biden’s running), so perhaps he’s calculating that the more the pathos, the better book sales will be.
Or maybe Newsom took note of what some California-based pundits wrote after that inaugural: if the man’s dream is one day replacing Biden, then he needs an image makeover posthaste.
As a Los Angeles Times scribe wrote of Newsom a month ago:
“He’s been tagged as a guy who has had it easy. People think he was born into affluence, and that he’s grown into a slick, perfectly coiffed pol. He’s been defined, in many people’s minds, by his maskless, mid-pandemic visit to the mega-pricey French Laundry in Napa. And by his hair.”
The other reason the Axelrod-Newsom podcast is a telling listen: what the governor doesn’t talk about—namely, a second-term agenda. Although, Florida governor Ron DeSantis did come up multiple times. Ironically, Newsom told Axelrod that he doesn’t care for works of fiction, even if his obsession with DeSantis has an Ahab-like look and feel to it.
While Newsom proceeds with his charm offense, let’s see if the governor addresses a pair of personality tics that pundits have noted —shortcomings that won’t play well if the nation is looking for another “profile in courage” (yes, I know it wasn’t RFK but his brother who’s associated with that phrase).
One tic: Newsom’s blaming others rather than taking responsibility, for the darker side of the Golden State’s existence (i.e., the governor lashing out at California mayors for chronic homelessness long after declaring himself the “homeless czar in the state of California”).
One such recent example was Newsom’s getting into a back-and-forth with Fresno County district attorney Lisa Smittcamp after a local policeman was shot to death in the line of duty.
First, the DA issued this statement blaming Newsom and other Sacramento lawmakers for championing “prison realignment” and the early release of offenders, such as the individual accused of killing the police officer.
To which the governor testily fired back: “I'm sick and tired of being lectured by her on public safety. With all due respect to her statement, she should be ashamed of herself and should look in the mirror."
Note to the governor: “punching down” at a lesser elected official is not a good look for a chief executive.
The second Newsom tic: tough talk and bold pronouncements that turn out to be empty words and gestures, thanks to a lack of follow-through.
Two such examples: the governor’s angry words directed at “Big Oil” while Sacramento struggles with the semantics of “taxes” and “penalties”; a gubernatorial “Oxygen Strategy,” created in late 2020 amidst the pandemic and hospital supplies running low, with little to show in terms of actual results (much like Newsom’s ill-fated economic task force that produced zero new initiatives to help California’s pandemic-stricken businesses despite seven months of Zoom calls and navel-gazing).
The problem with seeking out straw men and evil “big” entities: one keeps waiting for Newsom to take it farcical extremes.
California’s governor rarely misses a chance to condemn the elected leaders of America’s red states (though an Arkansas Democratic lawmaker did push back when Newsom recently went after Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her state’s murder rate). One wonders why Newsom hasn’t pointed out that Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry’s injuries this season have come at the hands of NBA franchises based in Indiana and Texas? (One imagines Curry’s woes would be DeSantis’s fault if it happened during a game versus the Miami Heat or the Orlando Magic.)
Farcical, yes, but consistent with the knee-jerk contention that red states are the home of America’s pathologies.
Another problem: California problems aren’t always as simple as blaming one entity—in particular, any entity anathema to California’s Democratic base.
One such example: the high prices of eggs—in California, about $7 a carton, or double last summer’s going rate.
Newsom could call on the federal Department of Agriculture to investigate the root causes of “eggflation” plaguing America’s states.
Likewise, he could ask the federal Customs and Border Protection to crack down (no pun intended) on eggs smuggled into the US from Mexico to meet the demand of Californians scrambling (pun intended) to make up for the egg shortage.
But here’s where Newsom would need to walk on eggshells: given his past tendencies to single out the likes of Big Oil and Big Pharma (last summer, the governor announced that California will soon be in the business of producing lower-cost insulin), why not blame Big Poultry for the present egg woes?
The answer: because an honest accounting would have to include the role played by 2018’s Proposition 12—aka, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, which dictates the living conditions of egg-laying hens in California and requires out-of-state suppliers to raise their poultry the same way as a requirement for doing business in California (the constitutionality of Prop 12 being a matter currently before the US Supreme Court).
California’s governor admitting that the state’s progressive bent can be as much as problem as “evil” big entitles and conservative bogeymen? Or listening to the private sector and delaying the implementation of a pernicious law as various California industries ask for Newsom’s help with regard to Proposition 12’s mandates?
As with that problematic oxygen task force, don’t hold your breath waiting for things to change in Sacramento.
