At the state level, California Republicans have the problem of squashing any Republican-curiosity in lifelong Democrats frustrated with Democratic excesses in state and local politics.
California Republicans really don’t try to appeal to the center of California politics, and seem to be more interested in leading national Republicans and the conservative movement at large instead. You read any materials from CA Republicans, and I’m like “oh yeah I remember why I don’t vote for these people”.
Yeah, but for presidential purposes, no one is suggesting a California Republican.
As to your point, we have a similar problem with a lot of Democrats in TX. In many areas, including most of the local races I vote in, the election is decided in the Republican primary. Democrats often put forward nutty people who just want to tell you how bad Trump/Abbott are without demonstrating their own ability to do the jobs they're running for. I see it as a broad problem with non-competitive districts, which is why I appreciate Matt's preference for a strong and competitive opposition to his preferred party.
Gavin is this years Jeb bush. He will crash and burn immediately, likely before the first primary. Homelessness and the insane fraud wrapped up with it while the problems are getting worse, prioritizing drug using degenerates over working families. Spending 10B per year on health care for illegal immigrants, CAHSR being a money bonfire, housing prices pushing everyone out of state. Lefties and dems in uniparty states have narratives around these topics that make them either good or at least less salient for their audience but this is cat nip for moderate swing voters that decide national elections. Tons of content to drive engagement on social media and keep his conversation on defense in a position of weakness.
Here's the thing - Newsome is not the front runner because he's liberal, he's moderate, left-wing or whatever - he's the front runner because his comms team and himself is openly antagonistic to Trump in public and on social media.
Obviously, it helps he's the Governor from California.
But, there was space open for a moderate to be an effective moderate on most actual policy (though probably not as moderate as Matt wants) but also to be continually and totally oppositional to Trump on the obvious stuff that helps the median voter remember they heavily dislike Trump without actually go super left-wing or progressive. Like, you didn't have to embrace the AOC left to be the more popular side of the all the really dumb stuff Trump did - like, for example, did one Democratic politician actually point out the Gulf of America thing was weird and dumb continually (and turned out to be unpopular) - of course not, because every moderate waits for polling before they say anything more controversial than 'puppies and rainbows are cool.'
Gallego is actually doing a good job at this right now but well, I don't think he has a real chance to be a national name for non-policy reasons.
Instead, the moderates - reps, governors, Senators all turtled up, decided to actively work with Trump, or took more pleasure in getting involved with intercine internal party conflicts.
It's actually the moderates fault for being so scared of an old guy winning by 1.5 points after the worst inflation of a generation to actually effectively oppose him. So, Newsom is the front runner right now...and it's the moderate fault.
I'll put it this way - who is willing to be the Harry Reid of 2028 and happily and openly say incredibly mean things about the Republicans (except this time, unlike Romney, they might be true).
Newsom has definitely played his cards the best during the Trump presidency, but I really don’t put much stock into him being the front runner at this point.
We’ve got about 2 years until the beginning of the Democratic primary. That’s a ton of time for more candidates of all ideological stripes to define themselves, and there’s a long standing history in presidential primaries of early front runners flaming out.
My only twist: I think in polling, he is kind of a stand-in for "Actively opposed to Trump and MAGA but having no part of the leftists." So I like to see his numbers high, without for a moment thinking this means he will definitely be the nominee."
Yes. Everyone will make it very clear that they oppose Trump when they start campaigning, and I don't think Newsom will get that many points for doing it before it was cool. The hipster era is over. Also, with the exceptions of Whitmer and Polis, I can't think of a single person whose name has been mentioned as a presidential candidate who could be accused of "turtling up" or "actively working with Trump." That's just a vague impression that people have formed about "The Democrats" as a blob, not about specific individuals. The problem that actual potential candidates face right now is just that they haven't been *noticed* the way Newsom has, but there is plenty of time to fix that. There isn't going to be a lot of material to use against most of these people if you want to run "you accommodated Trump" attack ads on them in 2027 and 2028. Is that going to land on say Mark Kelly? Come on.
Yeah, it seems to me Matt is bewildered that Newsom is the current front-runner when the fundamentals clearly speak against him, as Matt laid out. But the reason he's the front-runner is that a) he is handsome and "president-looking" and b) he's a savvy PR guy. At this point in the race, vibes matter more than policy.
Obviously, you can't just copy looks. But you can copy PR strategy. And every single step he took to bolster his national image is a step moderates could've taken as well.
As much as Newsom is not the optimal candidate for 2028, moderates should really take a hard look at what he's doing right.
The other thing Newsom has going for him, just as Harris did before, is that he doesn't fall into either the "moderate" or "leftist" wings of the party. The leftists think they're too moderate, but not as bad as Amy Klobuchar (or perhaps Josh Shapiro). The moderates think they're too progressive, but not as bad as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
To win a US presidential election, you have to win over a number of voters who voted for Trump last time but are feeling disaffected and looking for something better. Yelling louder about how awful Trump is has been tried and found ineffective in that project.
So a good general-election candidate would be very persuasive at talking about how he or she could positively offer something better (think Obama 2008 or Clinton 1992).
This as an exceedingly long-winded, torturous way of saying “I like Newsom because he’s mean to Trump on TV and Twitter.” Call it the Jasmine Crockett Argument. And color me unimpressed.
The main thing is that everyone's going to be mean to Trump once they're actually running. Like, Talarico is saying plenty of mean stuff about Trump. This is an advantage that will be very easy to take away from Newsom when the time comes. At that point the choice won't be "guy I know is mean to Trump because he keeps popping up when I scroll" vs. "guy I haven't seen on my feed." The choice will be "guy who was mean to Trump at the debate last night" vs. "guy who stood out for being especially mean to Trump 18 months ago but doesn't seem that much meaner today, and should I be concerned about his electability?"
In Crockett's case, she'll probably try to stand out by not just being normal-mean to Trump but by being extra extra mean. But there are diminishing returns to that, and I don't think Newsom will do the same thing, nor should he.
This column was classic Matt, in a good way. Here he describes a core tragedy of democracy:
“The way you become mayor of San Francisco and then rise to statewide office in California is by calibrating your appeal to hardcore partisan Democrats, so of course you feel that his vibes are impeccable. A politician whose vibes are attuned to maximizing crossover appeal and winning swing votes probably will not vibe that hard with you, unless you personally are a swing voter.”
Small-d democracy confronts citizens with the reality that large swathes of their neighbors see life differently than they do. And normal, psychologically healthy people hate that and reject it as false.
As someone else mentioned, Jerusalem’s column this morning pairs nicely with Matt’s. She elaborates on the point I made above:
“Time and again, political professionals assume that their frame for understanding an issue is the primary one, stubbornly sticking to an analysis of root causes, only to find out voters are speaking a completely different language.”
I wrote a more measured and long response, but the short version is you can't beat something with nothing, and no alternative was offered here. You need to be able to speak extemperaneously to become president - everyone from Clinton to Trump could do that, and so can Newsom.
So I’ll start by noting that this is a persuasive piece, I agree with it, and I hope Newsom is not the nominee for electability reasons.
That said, feels like it isn’t engaging with the strongest argument of “Newsom isn’t Kamala” supporters—which definitely is not “Newsom is a white man”. It is “Newsom is not a weirdo empty suit who can’t complete a sentence and seems like either a dope or a space alien, and instead seems sharp, charismatic, quick on his feet, and like he actually is trying to win”. Would have been worthwhile to engage more with that beyond a passing reference to vibes. Article instead over indexes on knocking down an identity strawman.
I don’t get this. Kamala Harris is a career prosecutor. It was her job to be sharp, charismatic, quick on her feet, and trying to win. You could say she failed, but it’s silly to say she isn’t sharp and quick on her feet.
*gestures broadly at all the evidence available to my lying eyes*
I mean maybe that is a fair expectation based on her resume but it just isn’t the case. You can just look and see she is not these things.
How she managed to be as successful as she. Was despite this, I couldn’t tell you though I have met plenty of states attorneys who are not amazing trial lawyers.
Interesting and related anecdote: I actually once had occasion to work across from states AGs from a large sample of these United States and I found the ones from flyover country were almost uniformly more decent people and better lawyers (left and right) than the ones from larger more important states (TX, MA, CA, NY). I think the latter are more political animals (in a sound bite and back room dealing kind of way) than the former.
Look, I've seen footage of her taking people apart in oral cross-examination. Were my eyes lying to me then? I think it is much more likely that other considerations prevented her from taking the path you wanted her to take, not that she lacks the ability.
I think what is fair to say about Harris is that she was good in the debate (which requires being quick on your feet) but she was pretty bad in media interviews (which also require being quick on your feet). So her deficit wasn't the ability to think on your feet per se, but there was something else she was missing that made her bad in interviews, and that was a real problem.
A case is ultimately about a narrow set of facts. Politics is much broader, and involves history, data, values, vibes, etc. She never showed any ability to respond competently outside of a narrow band.
And even then, you also need to do it well - Hillary was actually very knowledgeable, but Bill was just as well informed but could speak well on top. So was Obama
Good presidents have exceptional skills in many directions.
I agree that Newsom seems fairly sharp. I would also add that another thing he has going for him is he comes across as a little bit of an a-hole, which is a good thing for a Dem. One of the weaknesses that Dems have with low-info voters is the vague impression that they're too nice, too soft-hearted, too willing to get pushed over by criminals or the Ayatollah or whoever. Newsom seems like he doesn't feel bad about being a jerk, which will help allay these voters' fears.
But many of the Dems who've been mentioned as potential presidential candidates also seem sharp, and not like space aliens. Newsom may stand out from *the Dems you see on cable news between election cycles talking about congressional minutiae* but will he stand out so much from the pack of actual presidential candidates? I tend to doubt it.
One interesting thing about Newsom is that he is strongly dyslexic and has trouble reading, so he has to go over and over briefing books. His style of leadership will be very different from Obama's for example, and he will do a lot of talking as opposed to a lot of reading.
Newsome has a liability that Kamala Harris didn’t: he is governor of California, not a US Senator. A Senator represents California on the national stage, but a governor is actually responsible for governing the state.
And California is one of least affordable states in the country, at a time when affordability is a salient issue. It has one of the deepest housing shortages in the country. It is among the top states for most expensive child care, gasoline, and groceries. California has about an eighth of the population of the US, but a third of the homeless population.
People don’t usually blame AGs or Senators for affordability issues in a state. They do blame governors.
I think these are great points for why Newsom won't make it out of a Democratic primary. Bashing Trump won't protect him from other candidates attacking his governing record. It's not like this is all his fault, he's done some good things in office, but there's just no policy constituency that is excited by what he's done.
I do feel like “talking like a regular person” has helped Newsom get a lot farther than I expected, and it’s surprising how few Democrats have this skill.
It's definitely rarer than it ought to be, but the majority of the Dems who've been mentioned as potential presidential candidates are fine at this. They just haven't gotten the spotlight yet.
Will Democrats attack him for the reasons moderate voters will have concerns about him? He’s the governor of a very liberal state. He’s culturally woke. What are his big accomplishments in CA? What position has he ever lead on?
If talking shit about Trump is a qualification for President then 1/2 of America should run.
I'm trying to think what Newsom's policy positions actually are. Not that I follow him much but my impression is he kind of blows with the political winds like Biden and Harris.
Yes. Contrary to a lot of what I've been reading, I think the #1 thing Dem priority voters will care about in 2028 isn't "how out front were you in opposing Trump" but rather, electability. And there's a lot of strong material to use in electability arguments against Newsom. Primary voters will be very worried about nominating someone who can't win, and if you can make that case, then you will make a lot of headway.
This is exactly right. A significant proportion of GOP attack ads are going to focus on California as a whole, and in particular their housing, drug, and homelessness issues — with the idea that, if you vote for Newsom, the country will become more like California.
I think the biggest similarity between Harris and Newsom isn’t that they’re from California but rather that neither of them really knows what they stand for.
Well at least he’s been working harder at appearing more moderate well ahead of the election.
People’s last impressions of Harris going into 2024 were her left wing pivots during the 2020 election and her association with the Biden administration, which also pivoted left compared to expectations.
right clearly Newsom knows that he should *appear* more moderate if he wants to become president but (to me, at least) this reads 100% as "I want to be president therefore I'm making this move, and if I thought being more leftwing would make me more likely to be president, I'd do that too."
"Actual beliefs" are extremely overrated. The politicians who get criticized the most for lacking them tend to be our most successful. Newsom is very far down my list of preferred candidates, but that particular argument is if anything a point in his favor.
I am 98.5% with Matt on this one. While I get the early interest in Newsom from the sense of he is the guy that seems like he's leading the Trump opposition, he's only playing that on TV.
My 1.5% separation comes from the fact that Newsom seems much willing to take risks than Harris ever was and engage different media outlets without a bunch of ground rules. Her 2020 campaign was a disaster from the jump, and ONLY ever popular with insiders and journalists.
Joe Rogan basically lied to Harris’s staff and slow walked, a lied to make it impossible to schedule an interview. It was basically a false equal opportunity for both candidates to present. Rogan wanted to avoid being seen as providing Trump what could be framed as a campaign contribution.
It was near the end of the campaign. She didn’t want to take a huge amount of time off to stop campaigning in a swing state. Rogan originally agreed to come to Detroit, reneged, lied about his schedule when Harris was in Texas.
The Harris campaign played nice with Rogan during the whole affair, but he was only willing to make an effort to accommodate one candidate.
I've never heard this. Can you point to a source? My feeling was that she just didn't want to. Given the shortened nature of her campaign, I get it, but it was in retrospect, not a savvy move.
By October, you're not moving results by 4 or 7 points with a change in comms strategy.
I'll grant your broader point that Newsome seems more willing to be ... nimble about repositioning himself than Harris was, and this is a tangible difference in their capability as a candidate. But to MY's point, he's never actually shown he can do this in a D vs. R showdown where it's mattered, and all of his baggage is basically the same as Harris's. At best, the argument for Newsome is, "He's similar to Harris ideologically but maybe a better political operator." Not very compelling!
>But there is just no evidence from the broader set of races that should lead us to believe that voters have a strong preference for white male Democrats over other kinds of Democrats.
This is an odd take. The preference doesn't have to be strong in order to be decisive. And this 2018 article says, "Experimental research has long indicated that minority candidates are perceived as being more liberal than Whites." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X18759642
If so, then nominating a white candidate is electorally equivalent to nominating a more centrist candidate, as Matt has advocated.
This seems correct, and the only way to rescue that quote from today's article would be to argue about what counts as a "strong preference".
Still, as long as Democrats conceive of this as balancing a ticket's demographics rather than reducing the perceived ideological distance between the party and the public, they misunderstand how this helps and why it's significant.
>as long as Democrats conceive of this as balancing a ticket's demographics rather than reducing the perceived ideological distance between the party and the public, they misunderstand how this helps and why it's significant.
Tim Walz being put up as VP in a "hey you morons like folksy white guys so here's one for you" move is practically identical to the GOP putting up Sarah Palin as the VP in 2008 to try to win over Hillary voters.
I suspect Americans like to see balanced demographics but dislike efforts to deliberate engineer that balance. Plus there's a risk that Goodhart's law takes over and we end up deep in the uncanny valley, with a simulacrum of diversity instead of the thing they really wanted.
I think we are talking about different things. I don't know that many voters value diverse tickets per se, be they real or a simulacram. But soecific groups of voters might be more likely to vote for a ticket if they see their group represented on it. I am pretty sure, for example, that Harris lost less ground among African American women compared to Biden than she did among other groups.
The result you cite shows that voters' perceptions about a candidates ideological positioning is effected by their demographic characteristics. That's not the same as indicating a "strong preference".
There's a sort of bank shot you can do where you say, "Voters who want to sneak in a more liberal candidate should choose a white male because less informed voters will think that they're less liberal than they are, making them more desirable for a subset of voters", but doing that moves way beyond the literature.
The point is it doesn't indicate preference at all, it indicates perception of the candidate's ideology, independent of the ideological preferences of the person doing the perceiving.
The literature shows "equivalence" in terms of ideological perceptions, but you appear to mean the candidates are equivalently "preferable". Those aren't the same thing!
> Obviously the sample of presidential elections is tiny
This sentiment should be applied more widely. And to the extent samples exist more of them ought to be used for analysis. Restricting to just the last race is odd.
Let's look at the electoral records of Biden, Hillary Clinton, Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore (at least).
Biden wins one competitive race in 1972. One sided races ever since. Ends up becoming president.
Clinton wins two one sided races.
Obama wins one senate race and a few state level races. All of them one sided, never a serious GOP opponent. Wins two terms.
Kerry has one very tough race in 1996. The rest pretty one sided. Falls short.
Gores toughest race was his first primary. Landslides ever since. Falls agonizingly short.
We are pattern seeking creatures. But really there is no pattern here.
And the macro political climate. Just about any Democrat would have won in 2008, so the Dem primary really was the decisive race. Similar vibes in 2020. The most salient question in 2028 is probably who’s good at winning dem primaries. I don’t want it to be so, but that’s the way the game is played.
Yeah the context matters. Ike wasn't particularly charismatic (though very competent)but that wasn't what the public needed as the country's cruise control button was turned on. JFK had the rare gift of both, which is the sweet spot. Nixon, Ford, Carter didn't really have that sparkle which probably why Reagan was such a breath of fresh air for many.
This is true. If you have no track record of winning in competitive general election environments, then we can't say you *can't* do it at the presidential level. The most we can say is that *we don't know* if you can do it. Some of the people who've never proven their ability to do this still have that ability and it will come out if they try.
That said, if you *do* have a strong track record of winning in competitive general election environments, then you probably *can* do it at the presidential level. So if you have options you should pick someone who has that track record.
In the 2008 cycle that would have been John Edwards or Bill Richardson
In the 2004 cycle ... Bob Graham?
These are counterfactuals, but I have a hard time believing they would have done better.
The thing is there are so many other factors, and yes if you hold all of them constant and it was just down to who had crossover voter appeal then sure. But when do you get that?
I didn't say that the guy with the track record would necessarily do better. I said that he probably has the ability to do well, while the guy with no track record is an unknown quantity. Sometimes you get lucky and the guy with no track record turns out to be great.
If you're looking at a guy like Obama and the "eye test" is telling you that he looks like an A+ talent, then it might make sense to take a risk on him. But if you have a choice of many candidates who all seem pretty good, and some of them have a good track record and others don't, then you should absolutely take track record into account. Of course your analysis should be multifactorial, but that's true of everything in life.
It's true that Dems from competitive environments tend not to get chosen in the primaries and thus tend not to get elected president. That strikes me as more revealing of a problem with the primaries than a problem with those candidates. We have a system of choosing nominees that selects based on the wrong criteria.
I agree. While Newsom is more polished than Harris, both come across as fundamentally unsympathetic. I find myself more drawn to both Josh Shapiro and Mamdani than Harris/ Newsom type politics. I have tried to think about why I viewed Mamdani’s moderation, who I find far too left wing especially on foreign policy, more sympathetically than Harris’s flip flops.
Maybe I’m overthinking but I think it’s because with Mamdani, you could sense real convictions underneath and watch him actively narrow them under the pressure of governing. I remember listening to him on the NYTimes Daily podcast being pressed about apologizing to police and his past rhetoric, I was convinced he understood the need to respect officers and that he no wanted to defund the department. But when asked whether the NYPD is systemically racist, you could hear the pause, the belief he still held, and then the choice to say “no.” It sounded like someone painfully swallowing a conviction in order to lead responsibly, and carrying the discomfort of that choice. That visible friction felt almost human. His youth probably matters too, it’s easier to extend grace when someone seems to be learning, awkwardly and in public, what responsibility demands.
I never felt that kind of inner tension with Harris. Don’t mean to make too much out of this, obviously all politicians are a mix of policy convictions and careerist ambitions. Yet even though I think Josh Shapiro would be the best candidate out of the current lot, I do think a genuinely untainted young outsider that appears earnest would be the best option for 2028. There is an incredible amount of grace that would be extended to that person’s journey. It was also basically what we got with Bill Clinton and Obama.
Newsom is more talented than Kamala but he’s definitely not likeable. I can respect his talent but he gives greasy used car salesman vibe. Kamala Harris gave more of an empty almost having no real beliefs vibe. But neither of them seem affable or likeable where you want to root for them despite ideological differences. Maybe it’s all subjective I guess lol
I get the impression from KH that she has inner principles but she's too worried about what others think. Like being part of the herd is top priority, not principles. At some point you have to stand out.
As a homless Regan Republican, I am hoping for a Democrat I can vote for. Someone who will not build on Trump’s expansive view of Presidential power. Someone who will follow the constitution, not engage in money in exchange for a pardon. Who will gleefully return power to the Article I branch.
I won’t be looking for the Progressive version of Trump. Taking golden shares in companies for example. I am hoping for someone who spent their four years removing Trump’s name, image, or likeness from every tree Trump has peed on.
Do I expect Democrat priorities, of course, but I am mostly looking for character to remove the stain of Trumpism, MAGA, the corruption. If, however, the 40 or 50 Democrats who feel they should be President and we have a repeat of hands raised to give illegal immigrants health care, I’ll know that, like last election, I’ll have to write in someone of character.
I agree with the strategic point: a California guy with a bad track record is probably not a very good bet. Shapiro or someone like that would probably do better.
However, in all of these articles about the importance of policy vs “vibes,” I find myself disagreeing somewhat with the analysis, which tends to be “announced issue positions are the most important factor” rather than something weaker, like “policy views are underrated.” (I also think the scare quotes around vibes misleadingly suggest something irrational about vibes being important. There are rational reasons why people might care if someone seems like a capable leader.)
Suppose we were considering whether a good fastball or good off-speed stuff is more important for pitching, and we need to decide who’s going to pitch game 1 of the World Series. I view Slow Boring’s analysis more or less as
1. Statistically, pitchers who throw harder fastballs tend to do better.
2. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Trump all had great fastballs.
3. What, you think off-speed stuff is important in the majors? Then how does Susan Collins, who doesn’t have a curveball at all, do so well in AAA?
4. Newsom throws about as hard as Kamala, who got clobbered, so they’re identical for all intents and purposes.
5. Shapiro’s been throwing pretty hard, so let’s go with him.
Again, sound strategy but dodgy analysis. The issue, obviously, is that Hall of Famers Clinton and Obama also had great curveballs! And Kamala has a bad fastball and a disastrous curveball. Newsom might have a good slider, who knows?
None of this suggests that goof off-speed stuff is broadly unimportant in a high stakes scenario. One could imagine a similar analysis showing that all else equal, pitchers with good off-speed stuff do better, and how does a knuckleballer do well if fastball speed is important? Furthermore, there are tons of guys who throw 95 and aren’t very good anyway.
(Also, I didn’t find the analysis of “Newsom’s vibes are bad” to be terribly convincing.)
I often think to myself, "There's no way JD Vance is a viable presidential candidate." But there's always this follow on thought, "Well... Unless the Dems nominate Newsom or Kamala again." And then I think, "And if there's one thing you can count on the Dems for it's rallying around the worst possible option."
Does anyone in professional politics think Gavin Newsom is the best candidate? I work in professional politics, and I don’t know anyone who thinks this. It is unquestionably true that Newsom has done a very good job of being the opposition to Trump in a very public way. And for that, I am thankful.
Frontrunner status at this point is meaningless. And professionally I have no sense that the party is in anyway seeking to coronate Newsome like they did Hillary Clinton for example. So the basic premise of this article seems a bit off or unnecessary.
I do think the moderates, as others have noted, could learn something from Newsome, which is not to be a cowering weaklings about a president who his unpopular. There’s a better style to do it to try to win over Trump crossover voters, but even many of them will abandon him based on the national environment rather than specific appeals.
The bigger issue is that moderate thinkers have made their project of the Trump years internecine fighting rather than constructively coalition building and fighting back against Trump. At a minimum, Newsome shows a better path to at least pushing back against Trump than anything offered from the so-called moderate vanguard.
I think it’s totally fair to point out that Newsom appears to be a suboptimal candidate - he is!. But I’m not sure at this point in the election cycle his candidacy is all that relevant. But I do think his willingness to publicly highlight Trump‘s. Weaknesses show some value.
Anyone remember how the Bernouts tried to tar and feather Klobuchar as an abusive boss because she yelled at an incompetent staffer?
I am sad she and Pete weren’t the ones competing for the nomination. It came down to the two oldest guys (Mr. I will hand the GOP a trifecta again and Biden.)
Klobuchar had that reputation before the primary. I would definitely hear whispering around that in DC among staffers years before the primary, specifically not to work for her.
I’m not plugged in to the folkways of the Hill these days, but I used to be, and it’s true that some members have reputations for being tough to work for. In my experience—not claiming this is representative of anything or scientific—women comprised a disproportionate share of such reputations.
I did wonder at the time whether this might be attributable to different expectations (women might be presumed to be “nicer”) or something about what it took to be successful in politics.
I know several people who worked on the hill for reps, senators and Governor's from my home state including at least one who worked for about five different such people. There was a particular person within that group of legislators who had a particular reputation. Not "don't work for them" but "be prepared with thick skin".
I don’t put much credence in the opinions of downwardly mobile trust fundies from Ivies and little Ivies. Especially to ones who pushed Democratic politicians to endorse unpalatable everything bagel progressive nonsense.
Very few people can afford to work in politics in DC. It’s expensive and pay is low. It results in only the privileged getting in and contributes to the weird dysfunction in the Democratic Party.
For 2028, Democrats need to run someone who will throw the circa-2020 Democratic party under the bus.
But Gavin has his fingerprints all over that version of the party. There is no way he can distance himself from it.
I live in SF, voted Democratic my entire life, and after seeing what became of the state by 2022, I was absolutely Republican-curious.
People should remember that for 2024, Trump didn't run against Kamala's 2024 platform. He ran against her _history_.
If Gavin becomes the guy, the airwaves will be full of reminders of everything that pushed me two notches to the right.
Democrats, you can do better.
At the state level, California Republicans have the problem of squashing any Republican-curiosity in lifelong Democrats frustrated with Democratic excesses in state and local politics.
California Republicans really don’t try to appeal to the center of California politics, and seem to be more interested in leading national Republicans and the conservative movement at large instead. You read any materials from CA Republicans, and I’m like “oh yeah I remember why I don’t vote for these people”.
Yeah, but for presidential purposes, no one is suggesting a California Republican.
As to your point, we have a similar problem with a lot of Democrats in TX. In many areas, including most of the local races I vote in, the election is decided in the Republican primary. Democrats often put forward nutty people who just want to tell you how bad Trump/Abbott are without demonstrating their own ability to do the jobs they're running for. I see it as a broad problem with non-competitive districts, which is why I appreciate Matt's preference for a strong and competitive opposition to his preferred party.
Gavin is this years Jeb bush. He will crash and burn immediately, likely before the first primary. Homelessness and the insane fraud wrapped up with it while the problems are getting worse, prioritizing drug using degenerates over working families. Spending 10B per year on health care for illegal immigrants, CAHSR being a money bonfire, housing prices pushing everyone out of state. Lefties and dems in uniparty states have narratives around these topics that make them either good or at least less salient for their audience but this is cat nip for moderate swing voters that decide national elections. Tons of content to drive engagement on social media and keep his conversation on defense in a position of weakness.
Here's the thing - Newsome is not the front runner because he's liberal, he's moderate, left-wing or whatever - he's the front runner because his comms team and himself is openly antagonistic to Trump in public and on social media.
Obviously, it helps he's the Governor from California.
But, there was space open for a moderate to be an effective moderate on most actual policy (though probably not as moderate as Matt wants) but also to be continually and totally oppositional to Trump on the obvious stuff that helps the median voter remember they heavily dislike Trump without actually go super left-wing or progressive. Like, you didn't have to embrace the AOC left to be the more popular side of the all the really dumb stuff Trump did - like, for example, did one Democratic politician actually point out the Gulf of America thing was weird and dumb continually (and turned out to be unpopular) - of course not, because every moderate waits for polling before they say anything more controversial than 'puppies and rainbows are cool.'
Gallego is actually doing a good job at this right now but well, I don't think he has a real chance to be a national name for non-policy reasons.
Instead, the moderates - reps, governors, Senators all turtled up, decided to actively work with Trump, or took more pleasure in getting involved with intercine internal party conflicts.
It's actually the moderates fault for being so scared of an old guy winning by 1.5 points after the worst inflation of a generation to actually effectively oppose him. So, Newsom is the front runner right now...and it's the moderate fault.
I'll put it this way - who is willing to be the Harry Reid of 2028 and happily and openly say incredibly mean things about the Republicans (except this time, unlike Romney, they might be true).
Newsom has definitely played his cards the best during the Trump presidency, but I really don’t put much stock into him being the front runner at this point.
We’ve got about 2 years until the beginning of the Democratic primary. That’s a ton of time for more candidates of all ideological stripes to define themselves, and there’s a long standing history in presidential primaries of early front runners flaming out.
Almost exactly what I was about to post.
My only twist: I think in polling, he is kind of a stand-in for "Actively opposed to Trump and MAGA but having no part of the leftists." So I like to see his numbers high, without for a moment thinking this means he will definitely be the nominee."
We have to admit he is a lion!
I don’t think Newsom is from Detroit.
Is Dan Campbell a Trump supporter? That'd be a good Dem spokesperson in Michigan (provided he wins a Super Bowl before 2028 of course).
A lion or a lyin?
Yes. Everyone will make it very clear that they oppose Trump when they start campaigning, and I don't think Newsom will get that many points for doing it before it was cool. The hipster era is over. Also, with the exceptions of Whitmer and Polis, I can't think of a single person whose name has been mentioned as a presidential candidate who could be accused of "turtling up" or "actively working with Trump." That's just a vague impression that people have formed about "The Democrats" as a blob, not about specific individuals. The problem that actual potential candidates face right now is just that they haven't been *noticed* the way Newsom has, but there is plenty of time to fix that. There isn't going to be a lot of material to use against most of these people if you want to run "you accommodated Trump" attack ads on them in 2027 and 2028. Is that going to land on say Mark Kelly? Come on.
Yeah, it seems to me Matt is bewildered that Newsom is the current front-runner when the fundamentals clearly speak against him, as Matt laid out. But the reason he's the front-runner is that a) he is handsome and "president-looking" and b) he's a savvy PR guy. At this point in the race, vibes matter more than policy.
Obviously, you can't just copy looks. But you can copy PR strategy. And every single step he took to bolster his national image is a step moderates could've taken as well.
As much as Newsom is not the optimal candidate for 2028, moderates should really take a hard look at what he's doing right.
The other thing Newsom has going for him, just as Harris did before, is that he doesn't fall into either the "moderate" or "leftist" wings of the party. The leftists think they're too moderate, but not as bad as Amy Klobuchar (or perhaps Josh Shapiro). The moderates think they're too progressive, but not as bad as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
To win a US presidential election, you have to win over a number of voters who voted for Trump last time but are feeling disaffected and looking for something better. Yelling louder about how awful Trump is has been tried and found ineffective in that project.
So a good general-election candidate would be very persuasive at talking about how he or she could positively offer something better (think Obama 2008 or Clinton 1992).
Or hey, think Reagan 1980 but for Democrats. ;-)
This as an exceedingly long-winded, torturous way of saying “I like Newsom because he’s mean to Trump on TV and Twitter.” Call it the Jasmine Crockett Argument. And color me unimpressed.
The main thing is that everyone's going to be mean to Trump once they're actually running. Like, Talarico is saying plenty of mean stuff about Trump. This is an advantage that will be very easy to take away from Newsom when the time comes. At that point the choice won't be "guy I know is mean to Trump because he keeps popping up when I scroll" vs. "guy I haven't seen on my feed." The choice will be "guy who was mean to Trump at the debate last night" vs. "guy who stood out for being especially mean to Trump 18 months ago but doesn't seem that much meaner today, and should I be concerned about his electability?"
In Crockett's case, she'll probably try to stand out by not just being normal-mean to Trump but by being extra extra mean. But there are diminishing returns to that, and I don't think Newsom will do the same thing, nor should he.
This column was classic Matt, in a good way. Here he describes a core tragedy of democracy:
“The way you become mayor of San Francisco and then rise to statewide office in California is by calibrating your appeal to hardcore partisan Democrats, so of course you feel that his vibes are impeccable. A politician whose vibes are attuned to maximizing crossover appeal and winning swing votes probably will not vibe that hard with you, unless you personally are a swing voter.”
Small-d democracy confronts citizens with the reality that large swathes of their neighbors see life differently than they do. And normal, psychologically healthy people hate that and reject it as false.
As someone else mentioned, Jerusalem’s column this morning pairs nicely with Matt’s. She elaborates on the point I made above:
“Time and again, political professionals assume that their frame for understanding an issue is the primary one, stubbornly sticking to an analysis of root causes, only to find out voters are speaking a completely different language.”
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/how-the-opioid-crisis-turned-places
If we're lucky, the next election won't be against Trump. Is a demonstrated record in Trump bashing what the electorate will be asking for in 2028?
I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the Republican candidate for 2028 will be a Trump MAGA acolyte
I mean the post is about how indulging in is it fun to see someone bully Trump is a bad candidate selection criteria.
I wrote a more measured and long response, but the short version is you can't beat something with nothing, and no alternative was offered here. You need to be able to speak extemperaneously to become president - everyone from Clinton to Trump could do that, and so can Newsom.
Some of it is name recognition, too.
So I’ll start by noting that this is a persuasive piece, I agree with it, and I hope Newsom is not the nominee for electability reasons.
That said, feels like it isn’t engaging with the strongest argument of “Newsom isn’t Kamala” supporters—which definitely is not “Newsom is a white man”. It is “Newsom is not a weirdo empty suit who can’t complete a sentence and seems like either a dope or a space alien, and instead seems sharp, charismatic, quick on his feet, and like he actually is trying to win”. Would have been worthwhile to engage more with that beyond a passing reference to vibes. Article instead over indexes on knocking down an identity strawman.
I don’t get this. Kamala Harris is a career prosecutor. It was her job to be sharp, charismatic, quick on her feet, and trying to win. You could say she failed, but it’s silly to say she isn’t sharp and quick on her feet.
*gestures broadly at all the evidence available to my lying eyes*
I mean maybe that is a fair expectation based on her resume but it just isn’t the case. You can just look and see she is not these things.
How she managed to be as successful as she. Was despite this, I couldn’t tell you though I have met plenty of states attorneys who are not amazing trial lawyers.
Interesting and related anecdote: I actually once had occasion to work across from states AGs from a large sample of these United States and I found the ones from flyover country were almost uniformly more decent people and better lawyers (left and right) than the ones from larger more important states (TX, MA, CA, NY). I think the latter are more political animals (in a sound bite and back room dealing kind of way) than the former.
Look, I've seen footage of her taking people apart in oral cross-examination. Were my eyes lying to me then? I think it is much more likely that other considerations prevented her from taking the path you wanted her to take, not that she lacks the ability.
I think what is fair to say about Harris is that she was good in the debate (which requires being quick on your feet) but she was pretty bad in media interviews (which also require being quick on your feet). So her deficit wasn't the ability to think on your feet per se, but there was something else she was missing that made her bad in interviews, and that was a real problem.
Then don't say she can't think on her feet. There was a broad claim that she lacked the capacity. That's clearly not true.
I was explicitly not agreeing with that person. I was saying something else.
A case is ultimately about a narrow set of facts. Politics is much broader, and involves history, data, values, vibes, etc. She never showed any ability to respond competently outside of a narrow band.
And even then, you also need to do it well - Hillary was actually very knowledgeable, but Bill was just as well informed but could speak well on top. So was Obama
Good presidents have exceptional skills in many directions.
She isn't sharp and quick on her feet.
I agree that Newsom seems fairly sharp. I would also add that another thing he has going for him is he comes across as a little bit of an a-hole, which is a good thing for a Dem. One of the weaknesses that Dems have with low-info voters is the vague impression that they're too nice, too soft-hearted, too willing to get pushed over by criminals or the Ayatollah or whoever. Newsom seems like he doesn't feel bad about being a jerk, which will help allay these voters' fears.
But many of the Dems who've been mentioned as potential presidential candidates also seem sharp, and not like space aliens. Newsom may stand out from *the Dems you see on cable news between election cycles talking about congressional minutiae* but will he stand out so much from the pack of actual presidential candidates? I tend to doubt it.
One interesting thing about Newsom is that he is strongly dyslexic and has trouble reading, so he has to go over and over briefing books. His style of leadership will be very different from Obama's for example, and he will do a lot of talking as opposed to a lot of reading.
Newsome has a liability that Kamala Harris didn’t: he is governor of California, not a US Senator. A Senator represents California on the national stage, but a governor is actually responsible for governing the state.
And California is one of least affordable states in the country, at a time when affordability is a salient issue. It has one of the deepest housing shortages in the country. It is among the top states for most expensive child care, gasoline, and groceries. California has about an eighth of the population of the US, but a third of the homeless population.
People don’t usually blame AGs or Senators for affordability issues in a state. They do blame governors.
I think these are great points for why Newsom won't make it out of a Democratic primary. Bashing Trump won't protect him from other candidates attacking his governing record. It's not like this is all his fault, he's done some good things in office, but there's just no policy constituency that is excited by what he's done.
I do feel like “talking like a regular person” has helped Newsom get a lot farther than I expected, and it’s surprising how few Democrats have this skill.
This was, at least occasionally, a secret Biden weapon as well. But it's annoyingly uncommon in the rest of the party.
It's definitely rarer than it ought to be, but the majority of the Dems who've been mentioned as potential presidential candidates are fine at this. They just haven't gotten the spotlight yet.
Oh yeah, agreed. Lots of Dems can talk like normal people. Just not as many as you might expect, or hope.
Will Democrats attack him for the reasons moderate voters will have concerns about him? He’s the governor of a very liberal state. He’s culturally woke. What are his big accomplishments in CA? What position has he ever lead on?
If talking shit about Trump is a qualification for President then 1/2 of America should run.
I'm trying to think what Newsom's policy positions actually are. Not that I follow him much but my impression is he kind of blows with the political winds like Biden and Harris.
That's one of his greatest strengths.
The main thing his primary competitors will attack him on is electability, and it will be a pretty powerful attack.
Yes. Contrary to a lot of what I've been reading, I think the #1 thing Dem priority voters will care about in 2028 isn't "how out front were you in opposing Trump" but rather, electability. And there's a lot of strong material to use in electability arguments against Newsom. Primary voters will be very worried about nominating someone who can't win, and if you can make that case, then you will make a lot of headway.
This is exactly right. A significant proportion of GOP attack ads are going to focus on California as a whole, and in particular their housing, drug, and homelessness issues — with the idea that, if you vote for Newsom, the country will become more like California.
I don’t think that’s popular with voters.
Terrific point. "Governor, why is your state on pace to lose four seats in Congress?" is a type of question I'd be asking him if I was a Republican.
The only real rejoinder is "because we started building 40 years before you and it gets harder as you go."
It won't work, but it's largely true.
I think the biggest similarity between Harris and Newsom isn’t that they’re from California but rather that neither of them really knows what they stand for.
While true, Newsom has a better idea of what he stands for than Harris.
Well at least he’s been working harder at appearing more moderate well ahead of the election.
People’s last impressions of Harris going into 2024 were her left wing pivots during the 2020 election and her association with the Biden administration, which also pivoted left compared to expectations.
right clearly Newsom knows that he should *appear* more moderate if he wants to become president but (to me, at least) this reads 100% as "I want to be president therefore I'm making this move, and if I thought being more leftwing would make me more likely to be president, I'd do that too."
Like, what are Newsom's actual beliefs?
"Actual beliefs" are extremely overrated. The politicians who get criticized the most for lacking them tend to be our most successful. Newsom is very far down my list of preferred candidates, but that particular argument is if anything a point in his favor.
But does not standing for anything actually make it more difficult to win? I mean, the current President is Donald J Trump
I am 98.5% with Matt on this one. While I get the early interest in Newsom from the sense of he is the guy that seems like he's leading the Trump opposition, he's only playing that on TV.
My 1.5% separation comes from the fact that Newsom seems much willing to take risks than Harris ever was and engage different media outlets without a bunch of ground rules. Her 2020 campaign was a disaster from the jump, and ONLY ever popular with insiders and journalists.
Newsom would definitely agree to Joe Rogan's podcast, and would probably make for good tv while he was there.
Joe Rogan basically lied to Harris’s staff and slow walked, a lied to make it impossible to schedule an interview. It was basically a false equal opportunity for both candidates to present. Rogan wanted to avoid being seen as providing Trump what could be framed as a campaign contribution.
Evidence for this? Everything I've seen suggests Harris didn't want to physically travel to his studio, a ludicrous objection.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/kamala-harris-finally-reveals-her-211330022.html
It was near the end of the campaign. She didn’t want to take a huge amount of time off to stop campaigning in a swing state. Rogan originally agreed to come to Detroit, reneged, lied about his schedule when Harris was in Texas.
The Harris campaign played nice with Rogan during the whole affair, but he was only willing to make an effort to accommodate one candidate.
I've never heard this. Can you point to a source? My feeling was that she just didn't want to. Given the shortened nature of her campaign, I get it, but it was in retrospect, not a savvy move.
I could be wrong.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/kamala-harris-finally-reveals-her-211330022.html
Agreed, if Newsom finds himself down by 3 points in October, he'll shake something up so he wins by 1 or loses by 10. Harris wouldn't do this.
Unfortunately, I do think he'll be down 3 in October when Beshear or Shapiro would be up.
By October, you're not moving results by 4 or 7 points with a change in comms strategy.
I'll grant your broader point that Newsome seems more willing to be ... nimble about repositioning himself than Harris was, and this is a tangible difference in their capability as a candidate. But to MY's point, he's never actually shown he can do this in a D vs. R showdown where it's mattered, and all of his baggage is basically the same as Harris's. At best, the argument for Newsome is, "He's similar to Harris ideologically but maybe a better political operator." Not very compelling!
True, but I think that’s worth much more than 1.5%, more like 10-15%
>But there is just no evidence from the broader set of races that should lead us to believe that voters have a strong preference for white male Democrats over other kinds of Democrats.
This is an odd take. The preference doesn't have to be strong in order to be decisive. And this 2018 article says, "Experimental research has long indicated that minority candidates are perceived as being more liberal than Whites." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X18759642
If so, then nominating a white candidate is electorally equivalent to nominating a more centrist candidate, as Matt has advocated.
Edit: A similar study re gender. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1111/0022-3816.00019
This seems correct, and the only way to rescue that quote from today's article would be to argue about what counts as a "strong preference".
Still, as long as Democrats conceive of this as balancing a ticket's demographics rather than reducing the perceived ideological distance between the party and the public, they misunderstand how this helps and why it's significant.
>as long as Democrats conceive of this as balancing a ticket's demographics rather than reducing the perceived ideological distance between the party and the public, they misunderstand how this helps and why it's significant.
Tim Walz being put up as VP in a "hey you morons like folksy white guys so here's one for you" move is practically identical to the GOP putting up Sarah Palin as the VP in 2008 to try to win over Hillary voters.
Well, it is possible that balancing demographics helps, too. And, a high turnout of African American voters certainly helps Democrats.
It's also possible that balancing hurts!
I suspect Americans like to see balanced demographics but dislike efforts to deliberate engineer that balance. Plus there's a risk that Goodhart's law takes over and we end up deep in the uncanny valley, with a simulacrum of diversity instead of the thing they really wanted.
I think we are talking about different things. I don't know that many voters value diverse tickets per se, be they real or a simulacram. But soecific groups of voters might be more likely to vote for a ticket if they see their group represented on it. I am pretty sure, for example, that Harris lost less ground among African American women compared to Biden than she did among other groups.
The result you cite shows that voters' perceptions about a candidates ideological positioning is effected by their demographic characteristics. That's not the same as indicating a "strong preference".
There's a sort of bank shot you can do where you say, "Voters who want to sneak in a more liberal candidate should choose a white male because less informed voters will think that they're less liberal than they are, making them more desirable for a subset of voters", but doing that moves way beyond the literature.
>That's not the same as indicating a "strong preference"
? I didn't claim that it did. The very first thing I said was, "The preference doesn't have to be strong in order to be decisive. "
The point is it doesn't indicate preference at all, it indicates perception of the candidate's ideology, independent of the ideological preferences of the person doing the perceiving.
As I said, "If so, then nominating a white candidate is electorally equivalent to nominating a more centrist candidate, as Matt has advocated."
The literature shows "equivalence" in terms of ideological perceptions, but you appear to mean the candidates are equivalently "preferable". Those aren't the same thing!
> Obviously the sample of presidential elections is tiny
This sentiment should be applied more widely. And to the extent samples exist more of them ought to be used for analysis. Restricting to just the last race is odd.
Let's look at the electoral records of Biden, Hillary Clinton, Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore (at least).
Biden wins one competitive race in 1972. One sided races ever since. Ends up becoming president.
Clinton wins two one sided races.
Obama wins one senate race and a few state level races. All of them one sided, never a serious GOP opponent. Wins two terms.
Kerry has one very tough race in 1996. The rest pretty one sided. Falls short.
Gores toughest race was his first primary. Landslides ever since. Falls agonizingly short.
We are pattern seeking creatures. But really there is no pattern here.
The most uncomfortable part of that pattern is probably charisma matters more than policy wonks would like.
And the macro political climate. Just about any Democrat would have won in 2008, so the Dem primary really was the decisive race. Similar vibes in 2020. The most salient question in 2028 is probably who’s good at winning dem primaries. I don’t want it to be so, but that’s the way the game is played.
Yeah the context matters. Ike wasn't particularly charismatic (though very competent)but that wasn't what the public needed as the country's cruise control button was turned on. JFK had the rare gift of both, which is the sweet spot. Nixon, Ford, Carter didn't really have that sparkle which probably why Reagan was such a breath of fresh air for many.
This is true. If you have no track record of winning in competitive general election environments, then we can't say you *can't* do it at the presidential level. The most we can say is that *we don't know* if you can do it. Some of the people who've never proven their ability to do this still have that ability and it will come out if they try.
That said, if you *do* have a strong track record of winning in competitive general election environments, then you probably *can* do it at the presidential level. So if you have options you should pick someone who has that track record.
This is logical. But does it hold up empirically?
In the 2016 cycle ... Jim Webb?
In the 2008 cycle that would have been John Edwards or Bill Richardson
In the 2004 cycle ... Bob Graham?
These are counterfactuals, but I have a hard time believing they would have done better.
The thing is there are so many other factors, and yes if you hold all of them constant and it was just down to who had crossover voter appeal then sure. But when do you get that?
I didn't say that the guy with the track record would necessarily do better. I said that he probably has the ability to do well, while the guy with no track record is an unknown quantity. Sometimes you get lucky and the guy with no track record turns out to be great.
If you're looking at a guy like Obama and the "eye test" is telling you that he looks like an A+ talent, then it might make sense to take a risk on him. But if you have a choice of many candidates who all seem pretty good, and some of them have a good track record and others don't, then you should absolutely take track record into account. Of course your analysis should be multifactorial, but that's true of everything in life.
It's true that Dems from competitive environments tend not to get chosen in the primaries and thus tend not to get elected president. That strikes me as more revealing of a problem with the primaries than a problem with those candidates. We have a system of choosing nominees that selects based on the wrong criteria.
Joe Biden also lost several primary contests in different decades for President.
Obama did lose an election to Bobby Rush. That was clearly educational for him.
I agree. While Newsom is more polished than Harris, both come across as fundamentally unsympathetic. I find myself more drawn to both Josh Shapiro and Mamdani than Harris/ Newsom type politics. I have tried to think about why I viewed Mamdani’s moderation, who I find far too left wing especially on foreign policy, more sympathetically than Harris’s flip flops.
Maybe I’m overthinking but I think it’s because with Mamdani, you could sense real convictions underneath and watch him actively narrow them under the pressure of governing. I remember listening to him on the NYTimes Daily podcast being pressed about apologizing to police and his past rhetoric, I was convinced he understood the need to respect officers and that he no wanted to defund the department. But when asked whether the NYPD is systemically racist, you could hear the pause, the belief he still held, and then the choice to say “no.” It sounded like someone painfully swallowing a conviction in order to lead responsibly, and carrying the discomfort of that choice. That visible friction felt almost human. His youth probably matters too, it’s easier to extend grace when someone seems to be learning, awkwardly and in public, what responsibility demands.
I never felt that kind of inner tension with Harris. Don’t mean to make too much out of this, obviously all politicians are a mix of policy convictions and careerist ambitions. Yet even though I think Josh Shapiro would be the best candidate out of the current lot, I do think a genuinely untainted young outsider that appears earnest would be the best option for 2028. There is an incredible amount of grace that would be extended to that person’s journey. It was also basically what we got with Bill Clinton and Obama.
Newsom is more talented than Kamala but he’s definitely not likeable. I can respect his talent but he gives greasy used car salesman vibe. Kamala Harris gave more of an empty almost having no real beliefs vibe. But neither of them seem affable or likeable where you want to root for them despite ideological differences. Maybe it’s all subjective I guess lol
I get the impression from KH that she has inner principles but she's too worried about what others think. Like being part of the herd is top priority, not principles. At some point you have to stand out.
As a homless Regan Republican, I am hoping for a Democrat I can vote for. Someone who will not build on Trump’s expansive view of Presidential power. Someone who will follow the constitution, not engage in money in exchange for a pardon. Who will gleefully return power to the Article I branch.
I won’t be looking for the Progressive version of Trump. Taking golden shares in companies for example. I am hoping for someone who spent their four years removing Trump’s name, image, or likeness from every tree Trump has peed on.
Do I expect Democrat priorities, of course, but I am mostly looking for character to remove the stain of Trumpism, MAGA, the corruption. If, however, the 40 or 50 Democrats who feel they should be President and we have a repeat of hands raised to give illegal immigrants health care, I’ll know that, like last election, I’ll have to write in someone of character.
Well argued, but I didn't see anything about how he does in Republican counties in CA. Isn't that where to look for further proof?
I agree with the strategic point: a California guy with a bad track record is probably not a very good bet. Shapiro or someone like that would probably do better.
However, in all of these articles about the importance of policy vs “vibes,” I find myself disagreeing somewhat with the analysis, which tends to be “announced issue positions are the most important factor” rather than something weaker, like “policy views are underrated.” (I also think the scare quotes around vibes misleadingly suggest something irrational about vibes being important. There are rational reasons why people might care if someone seems like a capable leader.)
Suppose we were considering whether a good fastball or good off-speed stuff is more important for pitching, and we need to decide who’s going to pitch game 1 of the World Series. I view Slow Boring’s analysis more or less as
1. Statistically, pitchers who throw harder fastballs tend to do better.
2. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Trump all had great fastballs.
3. What, you think off-speed stuff is important in the majors? Then how does Susan Collins, who doesn’t have a curveball at all, do so well in AAA?
4. Newsom throws about as hard as Kamala, who got clobbered, so they’re identical for all intents and purposes.
5. Shapiro’s been throwing pretty hard, so let’s go with him.
Again, sound strategy but dodgy analysis. The issue, obviously, is that Hall of Famers Clinton and Obama also had great curveballs! And Kamala has a bad fastball and a disastrous curveball. Newsom might have a good slider, who knows?
None of this suggests that goof off-speed stuff is broadly unimportant in a high stakes scenario. One could imagine a similar analysis showing that all else equal, pitchers with good off-speed stuff do better, and how does a knuckleballer do well if fastball speed is important? Furthermore, there are tons of guys who throw 95 and aren’t very good anyway.
(Also, I didn’t find the analysis of “Newsom’s vibes are bad” to be terribly convincing.)
I often think to myself, "There's no way JD Vance is a viable presidential candidate." But there's always this follow on thought, "Well... Unless the Dems nominate Newsom or Kamala again." And then I think, "And if there's one thing you can count on the Dems for it's rallying around the worst possible option."
And then I go and look for a drink.
Does anyone in professional politics think Gavin Newsom is the best candidate? I work in professional politics, and I don’t know anyone who thinks this. It is unquestionably true that Newsom has done a very good job of being the opposition to Trump in a very public way. And for that, I am thankful.
Frontrunner status at this point is meaningless. And professionally I have no sense that the party is in anyway seeking to coronate Newsome like they did Hillary Clinton for example. So the basic premise of this article seems a bit off or unnecessary.
I do think the moderates, as others have noted, could learn something from Newsome, which is not to be a cowering weaklings about a president who his unpopular. There’s a better style to do it to try to win over Trump crossover voters, but even many of them will abandon him based on the national environment rather than specific appeals.
The bigger issue is that moderate thinkers have made their project of the Trump years internecine fighting rather than constructively coalition building and fighting back against Trump. At a minimum, Newsome shows a better path to at least pushing back against Trump than anything offered from the so-called moderate vanguard.
I think it’s totally fair to point out that Newsom appears to be a suboptimal candidate - he is!. But I’m not sure at this point in the election cycle his candidacy is all that relevant. But I do think his willingness to publicly highlight Trump‘s. Weaknesses show some value.
Moderates prioritizing building a coalition with the left wing of the party just gets you the Biden admin
Anyone remember how the Bernouts tried to tar and feather Klobuchar as an abusive boss because she yelled at an incompetent staffer?
I am sad she and Pete weren’t the ones competing for the nomination. It came down to the two oldest guys (Mr. I will hand the GOP a trifecta again and Biden.)
Klobuchar had that reputation before the primary. I would definitely hear whispering around that in DC among staffers years before the primary, specifically not to work for her.
To be fair, many young people making little pay can also be annoyingly incompetent.
Every senator and representative has a staff of young people working for low pay. Not every one of them develops a reputation as a bad boss.
The thing is I didn't hear the same thing about most other Democratic senators at the same time from friends who were job searching on the Hill.
I’m not plugged in to the folkways of the Hill these days, but I used to be, and it’s true that some members have reputations for being tough to work for. In my experience—not claiming this is representative of anything or scientific—women comprised a disproportionate share of such reputations.
I did wonder at the time whether this might be attributable to different expectations (women might be presumed to be “nicer”) or something about what it took to be successful in politics.
I know several people who worked on the hill for reps, senators and Governor's from my home state including at least one who worked for about five different such people. There was a particular person within that group of legislators who had a particular reputation. Not "don't work for them" but "be prepared with thick skin".
Yeah, it was definitely more than yelled at a staffer:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-staff.html
Amy Klobuchar famously is an abusive boss. I’m happy to put you on the phone with 3/4 of the United States Senate staffers if you must.
I don’t put much credence in the opinions of downwardly mobile trust fundies from Ivies and little Ivies. Especially to ones who pushed Democratic politicians to endorse unpalatable everything bagel progressive nonsense.
So very weird comment. But best of luck in all endeavors
Very few people can afford to work in politics in DC. It’s expensive and pay is low. It results in only the privileged getting in and contributes to the weird dysfunction in the Democratic Party.