He reminds me too much of Bill Clinton, in a bad way. First, he comes across as slick, basically the California version of a Good Ol Sothern Boy. Second, he seems like someone who’s going to be all about the establishment in the same way Bill Clinton was, rather than about wanting to help the people who actually need help.
I’ll be honest, I was more interested in the negative reactions because those were the positions I understood the least. I was trying to understand what people who are skeptical of Newsom were seeing that I wasn’t.
That said, this is primary season. People are naturally going to defend candidates they like, and that’s especially true in a thread asking why some Democrats are reluctant to support a particular candidate based on things like authenticity, electability, personal style, or other impressions that are harder to demonstrate with a citation or data set than a specific policy disagreement.
I’m not sure how to answer the poll, because for me, “vibes” and “electability concerns” are overlapping categories. What I’ve learned from 30+ years of following politics is that my own instincts tend to be pretty good proxies for where the electorate at large (and not just engaged Democrats) will end up, even though I personally consider myself an engaged Democrat. And I can’t always articulate a “why” in the moment, but pretty much any time I get a strong “no, this doesn’t feel right” about a candidate or an issue position or a piece of messaging or whatever, it has turned out that the thing was, in fact, a bad idea from an electoral point of view.
To take a recent example for which I actually do have the receipts, since I posted about it on the SDMB, I had that same “nope” feeling about Graham Plattner. And when someone posted a thread, very similar to this one, asking for good reasons not to support Plattner, the best I could come up with was along the lines of “Well, even if he’s telling the truth about his tattoo, getting a tattoo that you don’t know what it means while drunk just seems like poor impulse control and lack of foresight.” To which somebody else in that thread explained that this was no big deal and I just didn’t know what it was like in the Marines. Fine; I do not, in fact, know what it’s like in the Marines. But I was dead right about Plattner being a disaster of a nominee.
I walked into a primary voting booth in the spring of 2016 thinking that I was going to vote for a presidential candidate of my own sex for the first time in my life, and I ought, of course, to be excited about that – and then, acting on pure instinct, I ended up pulling the lever for Bernie. For the next six months I wondered, on and off, what had possessed me to do that. On November 9, I knew why I had done it.
This feels like that. And that’s the best and only answer I can give you.
That was me with Hillary Clinton when I lived in NY. Three against in primaries and three for in generals.
I get a kick out of his trolling, but my wife thinks it’s not dignified.
Beyond the general dislike of his look/vibe, and seeming inauthenticity, his background also seems kind of not exactly “man-of-the-people”.
I mean, he’s tight with a Getty heir, co-founds a winery two years into college(1991) works on it and is wildly successful, but then sells it all in 2004 to become a full-time poltiician? Why sell, and why go all in on politics? That’s a bit unusual.
I mean…because he decided he wanted to be a politician, just like every other candidate did at some point in their lives? Presumably all of them could have done well in other fields if they had chosen to.
He didn’t sell it, he still has a financial stake as I mentioned above that generates the bulk of his annual income (~$1million+/yr). He just had his ownership stake put into a blind trust to prevent any legal conflict of interest while he was holding office as governor. His sister (who joined a few years after the founding) is the CEO.
As to politics he started out appointed into positions by the TRUE and ONLY “Slick Willie” - Willie Brown, a consummate political operator (Kamala Harris had a very similar start, they’re all part of the same political bloodline/machine). He started out as an appointee to a city parking commission, a purely appointed position. Then came appointment to an elected position, a vacant city supervisor seat open after Kevin Shelley won a state assembly seat. Very interesting contemporary article here, which shows that even back then he showed signs of ambition and a certain degree of independence. I don’t think accusations of “bland” are at all applicable to Newsom - plastic may be 
. But he has always been pretty bold. He wouldn’t have had the balls to push gay marriage (grandstanding or not and I think he in part was) or troll Trump otherwise. His political aggressiveness I don’t think is in question, his judgement occasionally can be.
Anyway it is only after that he ran for office, winning re-election in that supervisor seat. So a not atypical upper-class entry into politics. Young, telegenic, smart, articulate and well-connected successful businessman appointed by a city political machine to a minor city commission, either as a sinecure or a test run or both. Evaluated and found useful by said machine and appointed to a vacant elected post. Decides he enjoys politics with its wheeling-dealing and higher stakes than just running a hospitality business and decides to pursue it full-time. While still maintaining his shares in said business. Win-win.
I think this describes my feelings about Newsom. I thought his trolling was excellent. A bit of their own medicine so to speak. But I want someone with the the people’s
wellbeing at the forefront of policy. He just does not strike me as that guy.
So much animus for Newsom on this board, and from members I respect, that I was looking forward to the substance of the pushback in this thread.
By and large I’m still at a loss. To the extent detail was provided, it just doesn’t seem remotely disqualifying to me.
FTR, I live in PA, not a fanboy.
Most Democrats feel Newsom is qualified. That doesn’t mean he’s our first pick. On this board especially, nuance is common.
I don’t think “just not my first pick” begins to describe the animosity here, but maybe that’s just me.
Again, I have no dog in the fight.
Based on the poll at in post 120, I don’t think there’s much animosity at all.
Must be the Silent Majority, I guess. Or I’ve fallen prey to confirmation bias. I can think of two posters (I’m sure there’s more) who are unabashed fans, and countless detractors.
Also, “I’d vote for him over Trump or Vance” is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I think we need a real fighter - not just for Democratic values and against MAGA, but against the status quo of SCOTUS, against billionaires, against corporations, and more. Newsom, to me, seems like almost the last Democrat I think would be up for such a fight.
It’s completely superficial, but like the OP alludes to, it looks like he saw American Psycho, and lifted his entire look from Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale’s character). It’s somehow too slick and dated at the same time, especially the hair.
As ridiculous as it sounds, that sort of thing can be offputting in a political candidate.
I personally think he’s one of the top longer-term options out there, but he could stand a bit of a glow-up.
And in a bit of a hijack, I think he’s pretty much right where he needs to be politically. Let’s not make the mistake that the (likely) midterm beatdown of the GOP is a mandate for progressivism or a push further left than the Democratic party already is. It’s emphatically NOT anything like that; it’s 100% a situation of “Things are more expensive and crazy, it’s Trump and the GOP’s fault, let’s fix that.”. All this talk about billionaires and “corporations” (WTF does that mean exactly?) and all the other aggrieved internet leftist stuff is absolutely not what people are saying they want.
I don’t think it means anything. It’s empty populist rhetoric. It’s the mirror image of “drain the swamp” and “make America great again”.
(substitute “Doctor Fell” with “Gavin N.”)
I feel like maybe I should start a thread about that… to me it feels a LOT like North Korean/Iranian/Russian bot propaganda to stoke class warfare.
I’d be very happy to expound on the issue of billionaires and corporations (and how they’re largely responsible for most of the major problems in the world, directly or indirectly) in a focused thread.