What Gavin Newsom should do next

The SF Mayor had folks yammering when Maureen Dowd wrote an article in which Gavin appeared to indicate he was retiring from politics after his term expired. “This is it. God bless. It was fun while it lasted,” he said of his career, with a rueful smile. “Guys like me don’t necessarily progress very far, which is fine.”


The obvious move is for Newsom to run for Lt. Gov. He is at least considering it, although seeming to lean heavily against it according to KTVU.

If he wants to have a significant career in politics, it is the best move he can make. He's termed out as mayor, his gubernatorial campaign was a non-starter, no other logical races for him to get in to.

The current Dem contenders, Janice Hahn and Dean Florez, aren't exactly setting the world on fire. Hahn's biggest campaign coup so far is getting the endorsement of Ed Begley Jr. And Florez's biggest achievement is that he has no ties to Ed Begley Jr.

According to the Fresno Bee:

• Lieutenant governor: Florez reported raising $229,747 in the second half of 2009 and has $957,381 cash on hand. Democratic primary opponent Hahn, a Los Angeles City Council member who only recently entered the race, raised $420,691 and has $341,341 at her disposal.

So we are 5 months from the primary and both candidates have less than $1 million Cash on Hand. Newsom swamps them both in name rec and could easily raise that type of cash- he couldn't keep up with Jerry Brown, but Florez and Hahn he can take.

Lt. Gov is not a high profile job, but Newsom doesn't need to raise his profile. He should spend the time traveling the stay, going to all the red counties and SoCal and letting people see that he is not a fire breathing San Francisco radical (funny how many people in SF think he is  way too moderate).

If Whitman or Poizner becomes governor, Newsom is a front-runner in 4 years. If Jerry Brown wins, Newsom bides his time- either for 8 years or 4 if Jerry only runs for 1 term. Newsom would also have a great platform to run for Senate in 2012 if Feinstein declines to run for reelection (decent chance since she's 117 years old).

And with all the wackiness from Edwards, Sanford, Spitzer, Vitter, etc., the fact that Newsom slept with his campaign aide's wife is old news. Kind of.

Here's Eliot yucking it up with Colbert:

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Gay Marriage

Gavin Newsom became the poster boy for the Prop 8 forces when they successfully passed the anti-gay marriage initiative here in California. They used this clip as part of a commercial that got a lot of media play:



Newsom was giving a campaign speech and it was easy to caricature him, but more and more conservatives are coming to the same conclusions as Gavin. The NY Observer has an interesting article about NY times conservative columnist Ross Douthat.

"He added that the conservative opposition to gay marriage is "a losing argument," and asked rhetorically if committed homosexual relationships ought to be denied the legal recognition accorded without hesitation to the fleeting enthusiasms of Britney Spears and Newt Gingrich.

After the panel, Mr. Douthat told the Observer: "If I were putting money on the future of gay marriage, I would bet on it."

He added: "The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate."

Republicans often win arguments on taxes because they successfully cast it as "Do you want to pay lower taxes?" The simple, concise argument is often most effective. In the case of gay marriage, I think there will be a continual erosion of support for preventing homosexuals from marrying. Especially since many of the arguments against gay marriage are similar to the ones against mixed race marriages (it just ain't natural). Of course, some geniuses are still trying to make the argument against mixed race marriage.

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."

No go, Antonio?

Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross report that LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has decided to pass on a gubernatorial run in 2010.

The LA Times reports that Antonio has not ruled out a run....but that he is dating a local TV reporter. No, not the local TV reporter who helped break up his marriage- a different one.

He's certainly an ambitious guy and would like to be Governor. If he Antonio were able to garner a large percentage of SoCal and/or Hispanic voters, he'd be tough for Newsom and Brown to beat.

Kind of funny that "Governor Moonbeam" has the least amount of personal baggage in this race- I don't think his fling with Linda Ronstadt will hurt him very much.