These are the best of the times and the worst. San Francisco pretty boy Mayor Gavin Newsom has made it official. He's running for Governor! Le sigh! Now on one hand I figure the state is so far in the crapper thanks to all those (stupid) people that voted for Ah-nold's incompetence how can it get any worse? On the other hand I realize as bad as things are they could in fact get worse and why would we want to find out? So I figure Newsom has at least as much experience but I'm still not exactly whistling Dixie.
See our Mayor is so much more than his good looks but he hasn't really shown us to what degree. He is intelligent for sure and if you go back to my July 2008 archives I wrote about meeting him at NetRoots Nation in Austin last year. I don't think he's Dr. Evil, but he is definitely a politician. I'm still a bit perplexed about his personal life and though we can say we don't have a right to judge you know we do! The way his first marriage ended after he got elected with his then-wife Kim Guilfoyle moving to NYC never sat right with me and made me suspicious of him. Then the scandal with him cheating with the wife of his campaign manager and friend was just low. These are indications of a person's character and the exercise in male white privilege to remain unscathed by this irks me. So it's no surprise that he found a blonde wife and is having a baby. Talk about camera-ready. Yeah color me cynical!
I suppose I should admit I was rooting for Matt Gonzalez during the Mayoral race. Newsom's corporate sponsorship and relation to Nancy Pelosi (by marriage) convinced me he was and will always be the establishment candidate, not a true progressive. The amount of homeless people wandering around San Francisco is problematic. To his credit he didn't round them up and shoot them like New York Mayor Guiliani (I kid, I kid..sorta), but the situation has not been resolved at all. Not when I see some of the same people on the streets 5-6 years in a row. The Care Not Cash program sucks quite frankly. The legal (but unethical) historical displacement of Blacks in San Francisco as well as the State of CA has yet to be fully remedied. I don't think that it will be either.
I also don't blindly applaud his efforts at getting a gay marriage amendment passed. Now let's be clear I support it but as I said Newsom is a politician. There was a mounting recall brewing during his first term and he had to scramble to find something to rally public support and political currency. Unfortunately Civil Rights and helping the poor wasn't (isn't?) one of them. Apparently that's so 60's and it's all about the practically non-existent Middle Class. Which is because of the rampant greed that saw a net increase of wealth for some people by more than 800%. Which is a big part of the reason why there are so many poor people AND the near collapse of the Middle Class. It's also something those so-called teabaggers should be thinking about. So gay marriage it was!
Now that he's trying to represent the entire state he's going to have to appeal to the downstate voters who aren't part of "liberal, gay-mecca" San Francisco. Which is a fallacy in the first place but perception speaks louder than words sometimes. The San Francisco Health Plan was a good start but we have yet to see Newsom as an activist Mayor supporting "radical" positions.
The idiots (sorry I can't be partial about this) who voted for Ah-nold based on his being a movie star and bought into the image of him being a hero. Hello...it's called ACTING! Like our Mayor, like all politicians including during some point our President. They all have an image to present and want to be considered viable to as large a percentage of people as possible.
So I'm adopting a wait-and-see attitude. We'll judge Newsom on his record and what type of campaign he runs. We will also have to find out who else runs - and I'm assuming Dianne Feinstein has decided against running. Jerry Brown hasn't stepped aside yet though. Either way we need someone capable of stepping into a leadership role. So good luck Gavin!
I'm still holding out hope that Karen Bass will run......
Here's his pitch - notice how "multi-culti" it appears but who's missing?
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