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Gavin Newsom? How the hell is he a viable candidate, let alone the only viable candidate? What exactly does Gavin Newsom bring to the table? Does he help retain the non-college whites who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020? Does he appeal to black or Hispanic voters? Suburban women? The kids protesting the Israel war? Moderates who don't want either party to go too far? He's a replacement-level California Democrat who some people think is a viable candidate because he goes around telling people he is. His backstory is that he's the son of an appeals court judge and Getty family attorney who was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, got divorced, and started dating a woman half his age. The only reason he's even in the conversation is because the kind of journalists who will vote for any Democrat recognize his name as the Governor of California. To everyone else, he's the kind of effete, sleazy, West Coast liberal who might hit on your wife, if she's hot. Kamala Harris would be a better candidate. The only reason he may be pulling strings behind the scense to make this happen is because he knows he has no chance in hell of ever winning in the primaries.
This is a sign of how shallow the Dem bench has become. What do they have lining up? Pritzker? Warren (lol)? Mayor freaking Pete? Not Harris for sure. I did say I like Gretch because she ties up MI and isn't otherwise disqualified.
I'd take Roy Cooper again any of them, but really the story here is that the Dems need to spend some effort on the bench and they need to elevate more swing-state folks.
My favourite conspiratorial explanation for this is that the HRC team knew that she was such an unlikeable and unpopular candidate they went and kneecapped all her prospective challengers to make sure she'd have an easy time getting the nomination.
I think it's most likely that Dems just don't have enough people to run every institution they've seized, and the old political office pipelines look unappealing relative to, say, chairing a billion-dollar NGO you can use as a personal slush fund.
See the "embattled" mayor of Oakland and all those others for examples of how poor their pool of low level politicians is; they can't even do the minimum effort to hide their embezzlement enough for Dem prosecutors to ignore it.
Whereas Republicans who didn't go the federalist society judge route are pretty much stuck with starting a political career as mayor of Cowpatsie, Idaho. They don't even get defense contractor work now; it all goes to regime-friendly guys like the motte's Netscape or whatever.
Like, a Democrat Thomas Massie would have gone a very different direction after MIT, and reached a much more profitable office than junior representative in charge of sponsoring DOA livestock bills.
But there's definitely a crab bucket effect too, made stronger by the party's power over the bureaucracy. Much easier to sabotage a potential competitor when you can literally order their subordinates to undermine them.
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I think Pritzker is probably their best choice now. He’s very bland. He did an ok job in Illinois. You can just run the election on Trump bad again. Illinois seems to be a better spot for the left to find their candidates than the coast.
That being said Newsome is running if he can get the nomination. You don’t pass up a chance to run when it comes even if it’s not an ideal time. I think he has a lot of personal characteristics that won’t play well in battle ground states.
A fat man cannot be prez.
My prediction anyway.
Trump is fat, he is the third heaviest president ever, I think he lost some weight since he was president though. William Howard Taft was famously rotund. Grover Cleveland was fat. More Americans, and especially republicans, are fat, and would identify with a fat candidate. I wouldn't say it improves anyone's chances. But the fact that Chris Christy even took a stab at it shows it isn't outside the overton window these days.
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Oh wow. I didn't know that. So Gavin Newsom's ex is engaged to Donald Trump Jr.
That's a spicy meatball indeed.
From Guilfoyle’s Wikipedia page:
10-8 Newsom, Trump. From Newsom's current wife's Wikipedia page:
Weinstein hit it first. 10-9 Weinstein, Newsom. It'd be easily 10-8 if not for the possible ambiguity as to what took place. #BelieveWomen charity operating on overdrive.
There's also footage of Newsom playing basketball in China with some schoolchildren. Newsome was a bit reckless, lost his dribble and charged into a boy who had his feet set, followed up with some friendly butt-slaps upon the boy (you know, as one does, when trying to recover from an awkward situation where you just plowed over an eight or so year-old).
10-9 random Chinese boy, Newsom.
I can only conclude that Weinstein ~= random Chinese boy > Newsom >> Trump Jr.
However, more seriously, I think Newsom would be a pretty good candidate. To the extent that's he's merely a "replacement-level" candidate for the Democratic Party, that could be a feature rather than a bug. Biden was mostly just there as a non-offensive candidate (from the Democrat perspective) and to be Not Trump; Newsom could do that but better.
He looks young compared to Trump and Biden (because he is, relatively-speaking) and is tall, has a good haircut, and has good teeth. For better or worse, those are quite important criteria.
I don't see him losing support relative to Biden when it comes to women. If anything, for aforementioned reasons, Newsome would do better; his tabloid-worthy history when it comes to banging younger women only benefits him. I also don't see him being less appealing to blacks or latinos, either, compared to Biden. Perhaps even more appealing.
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The photoshoot makes it even better
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