maybe. But I neither love him nor hate him. He’s “okay.” I see some flaws, and some things I like. I’ve noticed some people do hate him, but honestly, I haven’t heard of many who love him.
Newsom’s done some good work in California, but gives off a very strong Douchebag Vibe to me, at least. Cheating with your best friend/campaign manager’s wife is also never going to win my vote.
Talarico is getting 45% of his funds from outside Texas. Jackson is depending on national fundraising it seems.
Newsom and his wife had announced their separation and even filed for divorce in January 2005, before the Affair. Pretty much in America, that is no longer called “cheating”.
His campaign manager had not separated from his wife. “Oh, he didn’t cheat - the wife did” cuts no ice with me. That was supposedly his good friend. It’s a scumbag move.
Again, I’ve voted for Newsom in every election where I’ve been eligible to. I’m a lesser of evils voter and Newsom has always been that. If he were the Democratic nominee for president in 2028 I’d vote for him without a second thought. I suspect he’d actually be a pretty decent president. Doesn’t erase the fact that he’s a bit of a slick, entitled douchebag.
So was John F. Kennedy, so was Bill Clinton. Hard to leverage likeable people into the job.
This is one of the saddest and truest aspects of 21st century America. I think we’re about the same age, which means we became adults in the 1960s, which means that we were under the delusion that the future wouldn’t be as blatantly sexist, racist, homophobic, and Christian-centric as the present.
Some of that definitely became true. What we didn’t foresee was the immense hatred that built up under the surface and the backlash that would follow as soon as it became acceptable to spew it out. Obama was a fakeout - a triumph that became a “never again”.
I have no idea what the world, let alone the political world, will be like in 2028. In today’s world of August 2026, I firmly believe that no non-white can be elected president, along with no gay, no-non Christian (especially a Jew), no woman. They can succeed marvelously in some localities for lower offices. To win the presidency they would need to get support from all the disaffected and reluctant groups that didn’t support Clinton and Harris against the most not merely unqualified but seemingly totally disqualified person ever to run on a modern major party ticket. That means giving the mushy middle no conceivable reason to vote against the Democratic candidate. Reasons to vote for a Democrat would be a wonderfully tasty frosting, but the cake has to be something everybody would eat. I would love to be wrong about this but I can’t look at the last decade and believe that for a second.
Personally, my opposition to Newsom is based entirely on him not being a fighter. He says he’ll fight, but then when the time actually comes, well, he says he’ll fight.
Thanks for validating my earlier post, which some, who clearly lack reading comprehension skills, took to be an expression of my own bigoted preferences.
I graduated from college in 1970, and it did seem like a more enlightened, less bigoted world was ahead of us. Sadly, it appears that we have regressed. Or, more likely, the backward thinking bigots were there all along hiding under the rocks waiting for a Donald Trump to come along and give them permission to come out and make themselves heard and felt. I have about 20 years left on this planet, and I won’t live to see things turn around. I hope I at least get to see some effort to turn things around.
I still blame Nixon for lifting the rock. His Southern Strategy is the most successful and long-lasting coalition building in American history, even beating out FDR’s New Deal.
Which if criterion #1 is being a “fighter” is a tricky deal. Because the mushy middle doesn’t enjoy perceiving a rough “street” fight, and at the same time the hardliners may just stay home in disgust at your weakness if they see you giving a “sporting” fight.
The middle also doesn’t like milquetoasts.
Newsom’s record on Gay rights shows that he fought hard. He fights hard against MAGA stupidity also.