However, earlier polling showed Schiff and Porter polling around 20% (Schiff slightly ahead, but close enough to be a wash), while Lee was in a distant third at ~6%, with ~9% backing assorted other candidates and a whopping ~40% undecided.
Their argument is going to be that they are the leading choices by polling by a large margin, so handing incumbency and a chance to swing that 40% undecided to Lee is spitting in the face of a hypothetical electorate.
What i don’t get is why Newsom won’t find a qualified black woman who will pledge not to run in 2024, a placeholder, and then appoint the winner of the primary to the position, thus fulfilling his promise and giving the next senator from California seniority
Feinstein resigning would also force the issue. Do you think she is staying in office because Newsom wants to avoid making a decision so has asked her not to resign?
Anything’s possible, but I suspect it’s primarily pride on the part of Feinstein: a desire to return to the job she’s held for decades, and maybe being in some denial about her diminished ability to fulfill the demands of that job.
You’d be asking the placeholder to give up her current job for a year and relocate to DC on her own dime, all for the honor of later being unceremoniously dumped for someone else. It’s not impossible that there’s someone who would take that job, but a politician with any ambition or self-respect would refuse.
I agree with @kenobi_65’s points. I doubt Newsom would directly ask Feinstein for such a favor, but I’d count it as an open secret of which she’s aware. It may have factored in a little bit. However, I think it’s probably far more mundane. Feinstein, like many of us, overestimated her use-by date and rationalized to herself that she is still the most qualified person for the job due to her experience and seniority and yada yada. And she was wrong.
As for Newsom appointing a “placeholder,” there’s really no such thing. Even someone who says they wouldn’t run when the time is up could likely change their mind.
Incumbency confers a tremendous advantage, and all those interested in Feinstein’s seat are well aware of this. I watched every judge I ever worked with meticulously plan their retirement dates around whether the governor holding office was one they wanted to appoint their replacement, or if it was better to retire at a time that would ensure their position would go straight to election. Incumbency matters.
Beg to differ. WHen JFK resigned from the Senate to become POTUS, a family friend of the Kennedys was appointed to serve out his term, until Teddy became old enough to serve.
To be fair to @slicedalone, there have been several more recent examples of genuine placeholder Senate appointments. The key seems to be to appoint either an aide who has no electoral past or ambition (Paul Kirk in 2009 and Mo Cowan in 2013, both in Massachusetts) or a retired politician (John Kyl when John McCain died in 2018). But all of these appointments were made for very short terms – just a few months.
I didn’t say it never happens. I said it’s not really a thing.
By far and away, most open positions are appointed by a governor or go to election. Placeholders are rare, and that’s all I meant. In the Feinstein situation, I don’t see it happening for the reasons I’ve stated.
Well, what you said was that “there’s really no such thing,” but there is. I wasn’t aware that you were going to claim an example in my lifetime, which I remember well, was ancient history–in addition to @flurb’s examples, I could have cited Frank Lautenberg, the oldest member of the Senate, dying and being replaced by NJ’s AG until primary elections for Lautenberg’s replacement could be held. (The replacement did not run in the primary.) So it’s definitely a thing. I’m sure I could come up with more examples of a governor appointing a placeholder who agrees not to run for election, and I’m sure you’ll continue to shoot them down.
Of course, what’s “rare” is a Senator not filling out his or her six-year term so no one could supply you with a very long, very contemporary list of placeholder replacements, but placeholder replacements are common.
Paul G. Kirk, former Democratic National Committee chairman and former aide to Kennedy, was appointed to occupy the Senate seat until the completion of the special election.[316] Kirk announced that he would not be a candidate in the special election
according to his Wikipedia entry. Recent enough for you? Common enough for you?
IMHO Newsom does not want to make the decision now, and the longer he gambles with it, the more pressure there will be if Feinstein does not make it to the end of her term. He’d rather let an election decide. That said, Lee will be 77 years old soon, so maybe he does not want to be responsible for giving her the encumbent advantage and prefers someone else. I would not at all be surprised to learn he is one of those lobbying for Feinstein to stay put. His promise to appoint a black woman, if it came to that, was not smart, it turns out.
As mentioned above, if Feinstein leaves office now Newsom can appoint a senator and they will be an incumbent in the 2024 election with all the benefits incumbents get (which is a big deal).
If he wimps out and leaves it to the general election anything can happen.
It is decidedly in Newsom’s interest to pick a senator (not least that the person Newsom picks will owe him some favors).
He made a promise to pick a black woman. One happens to be running for that seat at the moment. If he picks her and bestows the incumbant advantage, he pisses-off the other two people running for the seat, and their supporters and sponsors. His long game is POTUS, and making enemies within his own party wont help that. It’s safer for his long term ambitions to let it work out naturally and keep everyone happy with him.
I recognize it’s not nice to say so, but isn’t it pretty obvious she is staying because she doesn’t know what’s going on, and nobody has made her leave? Normal people have guardians appointed. She doesn’t have the wherewithal to make strategic decisions. She didn’t know she had announced her retirement. Probably thought she was coming back for another term. I don’t see any reason to think she’s doing anything calculated to help the Democrats moving forward, and lots of reasons to think she isn’t.
Democrats are really frustrating when it comes to stuff like this. They’re being functionally compromised, they look like morons, various parties have tied their hands in counterproductive ways that will complicate their attempts to get out of it, and all of it entirely self-inflicted. But part of how they’ve tied their hands is that it is now at the very least rude or mean, but probably also sexist, racist, ageist or ableist, or some combination, to complain about it (ol’ what’s his name was a Senator 'til he was 120, and I didn’t hear you complaining about that!)
And just to over-explain for a moment, if Newsom picks a black woman as placeholder, it’s a win-win: he gets to keep his promise, and she gets points on her resume, and the others (Schiff, Lee, and Porter) get to run against each in the general election, one of them winning the seat.
What I mean by “points on her resume” is this: Newsom no doubt has several eager young black women on his staff right now (and Feinstein and others have others) who are ambitious. There is no shortage of such women in California. In exchange for an appointment and agreeing not to run against Schiff, Lee, and Porter, she gets to serve in the U.S. Senate for the next 20 months or so, which burnishes her qualifications to run for U.S. rep in her district, Mayor of her city, California AG, etc maybe a decade sooner than she would have otherwise had the name recognition needed for a successful run.
Newsom can also reward the winner of the November election by asking this woman to step down so he can appoint the winner as US Senator early to gain him or her extra seniority. WIn Win Win.
Feinstein is functionally unconscious, Newsome gains zero and makes multiple enemies by appointing anyone, and a D will win the election no matter what.
Newsome’s best play by far is pray Feinstein lives long enough that an appointment isn’t needed. Or at least that her handlers can hide her death long enough to avoid the appointment.
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