Some new
Gavin Newsom has announced he is not running for president in 2024, in a statement parsed about to see if he is indeed running for president. Theoretically the logic of announcing no bid while keeping it open would be so his weird advertising in Florida, Texas, and stunting over Abortion might have more impact — more altruistic than political, the thinking be.
I give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest he has taken the pulse of the country and arrived at the obvious: not going to happen. He doesn’t really have a “California Story” to sell the nation — apart from claiming a national mantle on Abortion access and transgendered sports-ball allowances. The political moment and array of elected officials depresses me.
There are two things that interest me with Newsom’s latest statements. The first, the reason cited for staying out of a presidential exploration exploration — the recall election chastised him. That seems completely insane, given how utterly torpedoed that thing was. But, I guess, it may be a place to cite that makes him look good — the humble brag. The second statement concerns Biden — it was a shibboleth of liberal Democratic posturing, offering that the problem with Biden is he still believes in some noble period of bipartisan goodwill. It was a statement that comes across as a shuttle through the old rolodex — it will get unhappy unsatisfied liberals nodding, even as it has not a lick of sense to it and does not match up to anything in Biden’s presidency. There were times you could apply it to Obama and Clinton, if so desirous — and so positioned to judge fall outs. It is another manner of carping “we can’t get all we want and f everything” — or, I guess, instant memory robotics, sounding the speech in tone deafness.