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Why Newsom Dropped Out
Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo; David McNew / Getty Images
Gavin Newsom bailed on the California statehouse race for one reason: He knew he couldn’t beat the once and future governor, Jerry Brown.
Don’t mess with Moonbeam.
The most striking thing about San Francisco Gavin Newsom’s decision to withdraw from the race for California governor is that no one else is in the race. Newsom’s only opponent—Jerry Brown, the former governor and attorney general—may be the frontrunner in the polls, but he isn’t a declared candidate. Brown only recently set up an exploratory committee.
The 2010 gubernatorial election has been over for months. Newsom, by dropping out, simply spared himself any more wasted effort.
To put it another way: Some great competitors are said to be so intimidating that they win the game just by showing up. Jerry Brown managed to clear the field before he showed up—and more than seven months before the June primary.
The 2010 gubernatorial election has been over for months. (As I wrote in the American Prospect this summer, Jerry Brown is almost certainly California’s next governor. )
Newsom, by dropping out, simply spared himself any more wasted effort. Beating Brown, a popular former governor who is the son of one of the most fondly remembered governors of the past half-century, would be a difficult task even for the best-positioned politician. But beating Brown when you’re a mayor of San Francisco who has too little money and too much personal baggage (a well-publicized affair with the wife of a former top aide) may be simply impossible.
Much has been made of Newsom’s campaign problems: internal turmoil. The departure of a key aide. The difficulty of fundraising in the middle of a recession. The fact that Californians, like Americans, see San Francisco as largely out of the mainstream.
But in some sense, Newsom’s real opponent was history.
Recent polls showed Newsom losing to Brown even in the city he runs. But those polls weren’t all that surprising if you know the Brown story. Jerry is a San Francisco native. His grandfather had run a poker club in the Tenderloin. His father Pat, the former California governor, was a local politician whose first office was San Francisco district attorney.
Much has been made of Jerry’s own political rehabilitation—through his two terms as mayor of Oakland and current term as attorney general. But Jerry also has been helped by the resurgence in the reputation of his father.
During his two terms in the Capitol, from 1959 to 1967, Pat Brown was often criticized as weak and indecisive. (The phrase that stuck, “tower of Jell-O,” was aimed at him by a legislator). And he was rejected by California voters in 1966 in favor of an actor named Reagan.
But the job of California governor has defeated most of Pat Brown’s successors. With the passage of time, his record looks better. Today Pat Brown is remembered as a builder—of freeways and universities and waterworks. In an era of broken budgets and 12 percent unemployment, the California of Pat Brown has never seemed so far away, or so alluring.
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Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as Justice Department reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a city desk reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of The People's Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy.
He's a fuggin' bulldozer!
As a native of Cali who working in the Califfornia legislature while going to law school in the 70s this article is spot on
Only other point I would add is while opponents will go after the moonbeam concept you are dealing with someone who was educated by Jesuits
He is fairly tight when it comes to fiscal matters
I doubt you will see the budget gimmics we have seen recently
And he does not suffer fools gladly which will help in dealing with the legislature
Witness he recent calling out of CNBC shills
Joe Mathews, I presume 'Joe Mathews' is your nom de plume. And your real name is Mrs. Jerry Brown!
AGREED. JOE'S ALL WET. NEWSOM HAS BEEN MARGINALIZED BY A CITY IN CHAOS. THE SANCTUARY THING AND ADULTERY LAPSE FURTHER REDUCES HIM IN ELECTORAL SIZE. BILLIE CLINTON HARDLY ENDORSES HIM THAN HE TURNS TAIL. BROWN IS EQUALLY AS SHALLOW. NO ONE RECALLS HIS OLD MAN AND NO ONE CARES ABOUT HIS OLD MAN EXCEPT THAT RONNIE REAGAN WHIPPED HIM GOOD. AS OAKLAND CITY MAYOR BROWN WAS A FAILURE. AS ATTORNEY GENERAL HE HAS PROBABLY DONE OKAY. HE WILL DEFINITELY TAKE CALIFORNIA OFF THE MAP AS A CONTENDER SO WILL LOSE TO A REPUBLICAN.
he probably relapsed after treatment; he needs a sponsor, a couple years sober, and a couple sponsees; give me a break; that guy would make an outstanding governor; but not drunk or even drinking
GRAY DAVIS WAS RECALLED.
JERRY BROWN WILL BE LYNCHED.
For all the admiration of Jerry Brown by people a certain class of elitists, there are few Californians who love Jerry. His father is still revered as a saint and Jerry still basks in the glow of his father geniality. However, where Pat made friends, Jerry makes enemies, and Jerry's tenure as governor was a train wreck from which the state has yet to recover.
I was a contributor to Jerry's campaign when he was first running for governor, but when I actually met him, he was so offensive that I have never supported him since. To have met Jerry is to be offended by him. My experience is not uniqure.
Recently, my wife and I were visiting Sacramento. For something to do to capture the Sacramento experience, I figured that we should visit the legendary capitol bar/restaurant and watering hole for California politicians -- Frank Fat's. We sat down at the bar and started talking with the bar tender. I tested her with a few names of longtime California politicians. Most of the names reflected my age, but spontaneously, she offered up a long story as to how Jerry had recently come to the bar and how he went out of his way to show himself as a jerk.
For those who don't recall, Jerry's tenure as governor was a disaster. Not only did his quirky approach to policy undermine the state, but it also was a disaster for liberals and the Democratic party.
Jerry was so determined to show up his old man that he managed to offend virtually the entire political establishment. His approach to transportation ended freeways, but failed to provide an alternative solution. The result is that while we used to lead in transportation, the state is now largely locked by gridlock.
His disasterous appoint of Rose Bird took out a well regarded, longstanding liberal supreme court. He was so determined to stick it to his father's cronies and the old boys who ran the state's agencies that he enabled Republican control of the governor's office for most of the last three decades.
As Prop 13 took hold, Jerry engratiated himself with its architests, Jarvis and Gans, and he cooperated in creating the fiscal mess that has dogged the state for the last 30 years.
The biggest problem is that he is a decidely unpleasant person whose personality and approach to policy seems to have been ruined by resentment toward his father, by a perverse reaction to Jesuit education, and by an imperious belief in his entitlement to office.
Newsom clearly had a lot of baggage, but in the little I have seen of him, he seemed to be very intelligent and talented as a politician. He speaks well and with some charm -- both qualities that Jerry lacks. Newsom offered the one hope that someone of a new generation with with a liberal bent could undo the mess that Jerry created and his Republican successors have made worse.
It's a greek tragedy -- or more simply, a crying shame -- that we are cursed that Jerry will likely win against a sad Republican field, and he will likely be elected to inflict even greater harm on California. Sad.
Another native Californian here (born San Ysidro, 1959) now living in northern California (Santa Rosa).
I don't sense that nostalgia is what is driving Mayor Brown's candidacy forward. Rather, without a well-known Republican candidate (of the recognition level of Governor Schwarzenegger), the field remains open enough for anyone with enough name recognition to absorb fundraising dollars.
And for Jerry Brown, having had previous stints as Governor, Secretary of State, Mayor, and Attorney General, he is nothing if not well-known.
Thank you.
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