THE HILL
There are a lot of empty suits in politics. But the vacuum inside of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) well-tailored Armani is so great that if you stand next to him, no one can hear you scream.
Newsom is currently in China, running a shadow campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, just in case President Biden succumbs to the realities of his age and waning mental capacity.
The possibility that Biden will drop out this cycle is remote. But whether Biden is gone next year or in 2028, Democrats have Newsom waiting in the wings.
Can the party that so ostentatiously puts identity politics ahead of individual merit consider this straight white male as its standard bearer? Can they do it at the expense of all other hopefuls? They may not have much of a choice.
Newsom is Biden’s most viable alternative today and his most likely successor tomorrow. Can you name another high-profile Democrat with the name recognition, donor base and political talent to assume control and succeed after Biden is gone?
Democrats may hesitate, but not because of Newsom’s real flaws. They have all kinds of excuses for his record in office, which has mainly consisted of driving away his state’s middle class — California’s population has declined by more than 665,000 since the day he took office in January 2019. They also don’t mind that he cheated on his first wife with his campaign manager’s wife — at least not enough to avoid nominating and electing him governor twice.
To Democrats, Newsom’s two biggest problems are that he’s white and straight — two fine characteristics that most people don’t find objectionable, but which the Democratic base views as the equivalent of a bag of rocks on a sinking ship. Also on the negative side of the ledger for serious Democrats is that Newsom was born wealthy — “on third base,” as some of them might even put it — and has a net worth estimated at $42 million.
For Democrats to nominate their best-known and arguably most electable candidate, they would have to jettison Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman and non-white person ever to serve in that position. Despite her deep unpopularity, she is unlikely to step aside willingly. Then again, Democratic voters have been content to reject her before. Harris’s 2020 campaign didn’t even make it to the first votes in Iowa, despite the wide open nature of the field that year.
With Pete Buttigieg pretty much sunk by his own tenure as a historic, diverse and incompetent transportation secretary, there are few other alternatives. Barack Obama is ineligible and Michelle Obama is unwilling. Hillary Clinton, the only person ever to lose an election to Donald Trump, could not make a comeback even if she wanted to.
So Newsom is the best they have. And for now, he is playing the role of a candidate while denying that he is one. He recently added Israel to his trip to Asia after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7.
In China, Newsom is signing meaningless, symbolic agreements on climate change with counterparts who probably do not intend to honor them. His trip is a minor propaganda win for the world’s biggest and most unrepentant carbon polluter. China’s ruling Communist Party, after all, is already building more than 100 new coal-fired power plants, and each week it reportedly approves permits for two additional new ones. So Newsom’s trip to China is a perfect symbol of his and his state’s ardent commitment to pretend to do something about what he calls “the climate crisis.”
Newsom promised Biden that he is not running for president. Yet although he may not be running technically, he is making it clear he’s ready…
