Even little Cindy in Mrs. Johnson’s 2nd Grade class at George Washington Elementary School in Some Town, California knows Gavin Newsom, whom President Trump has taken to calling Governor Newscum because the leader of our nation has the intellect and character of another child in Mrs. Johnson’s class resorting to petty name-calling on the playground to confront his real or perceived adversaries, will be running for president in 2028. But he is term-limited as governor, and so the race is on for his job. Our primary is next month, and I just got an email from the California Secretary of State’s office that mail-in ballots have been sent out, so mine will arrive if not today then in the next day or two.
Which means I have to make a choice. And I haven’t had to make one of those for governor of my state since 2010. The answer was obvious. Of course I voted for the Democrat. But not in an unthinking way; Jerry Brown, twice, and then Gavin Newsom, twice. But they were known quantities: Brown had been governor (the first time) when I was in high school – his father was governor when I was born. Newsom did more than any single individual to advance the cause of marriage equality for gays and lesbians by unilaterally granting same-sex marriage licenses when he was mayor of San Francisco in what became known as the “Winter of Love” in 2004 before the California Supreme Court ordered him to stop. I’ll admit I felt comfortable ticking the box next to their names without deep-diving on their policy positions because I recognized them as a combo of California Democratic royalty and LGBTQ+ friendly.
Between Brown and Newsom, California, a reliably “blue” state and the most populous in the nation, with the fourth largest economy in the world, has had a Democratic governor for 16 years. The conventional wisdom is that if Daffy Duck had a (D) next to his name on a ballot for governor, he’d win. But this year, it’s complicated. A crowded field of virtually unknown Democrats is vying for a spot in the general election come November, but to get there they have to be among the top two vote-getters in next month’s primary. With no clear frontrunner, and Eric Swalwell, who had been leading the pack, sidelined by serious allegations of sexual misconduct (i.e., harassment and even an accusation of rape), Democrats in the state run the risk of diluting the number of Democratic votes available and inadvertently making it less likely that any one candidate will get enough votes to finish in the top two. So, wanting to get a better lay of the land and choose my candidate strategically, I tuned in on Tuesday night to CNN’s California gubernatorial debate to narrow down my choice.
Oh. My. God. They’re all awful. Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, was the most palatable, and I think he has a bright future in California and maybe even national politics, but he seemed out of his depth running for statewide office and is polling at a measly 4%; I don’t want to waste my vote on someone with no chance of winning. Obviously, I want who I pick to win the whole enchilada, but because of California’s “top-two” primary system (as mentioned above, where the top two finishers, no matter their party, advance to the general election) at this point it is crucial that Democrats unite in support of a viable candidate rather than spread their votes out between multiple candidates, paving the way for an unthinkable (but not impossible) all-Republican choice for governor in the general election come November.
I am not going to digress into a discussion of the two Republican candidates on the stage Tuesday, but to say that one has Donald Trump’s endorsement, and the other leading GOP contender declared on national television, as anyone with half a brain looked on in horror, that he is, and I quote, a “proud Oath Keeper.” You remember the Oath Keepers, don’t you thoughtful reader? They were one of the groups that violently stormed the Capitol Building of the United States on January 6th to support Donald Trump’s fever dream that he won an election he lost. Unsurprisingly, the other Republican candidate, the Trump endorsee, has repeatedly refused to directly state whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Even when asked directly.
So obviously the two Republicans on the stage offered a choice between batshit cray cray and just the garden variety, election-denying, immigrant hating bullshit that characterizes the modern GOP. But the Democrats weren’t much better. Former Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, whom I voted for when I lived in LA, and former HHS secretary under Biden, Xavier Becerra, sounded very “old guard” and liberal establishment, which is not what is needed at this time, and Becerra has an accusation of campaign finance irregularities regarding his Chief of Staff from his time as Health and Human Services Secretary swirling around his candidacy giving it a whiff of sleaze. Katie Porter defended her “Fuck Trump” ads, and while I share the sentiment, the governor of California has to work with the federal government and the president, particularly at times of natural disasters like wildfires, earthquakes, and flooding, to secure needed emergency resources for Californians, and the famously thin-skinned Trump has already shown a willingness to “punish” those who challenge him directly – plus that kind of language is beneath the office of governor, and no better than the president’s profanity, vulgarity, and childish insults.
Then there is Tom Steyer, a billionaire self-financing his campaign. He’s a true progressive focused squarely on the climate crisis. He is in favor of taxing extreme wealth, but he made his vast fortune in finance; he has campaigned against concentrated wealth and corporate power – and you don’t need a degree in political science to see the contradiction there. He has made affordability – housing, utilities, and energy costs – a central issue in his campaign, music to the ears of Californians concerned about out-of-control living costs. But he has never held elected office and governing California is complicated; it means navigating the legislature, agencies, unions, and local governments. His ideas like wealth-tax expansion, utility restructuring, or major housing reform are politically difficult and often require legislative or voter approval – I’m not sure he has the chops to deliver on those: strong ideas don’t always translate into practical wins in a state like California. On top of all that, he’s spending enormous amounts of his own money on the race. While legal, I think it flies in the face of democracy by giving wealthy candidates outsized visibility and position. It is plutocracy. I’m inclined to say no on him, but he is polling well.
So you see my dilemma. I don’t know who to vote for.
Obviously, it has to be one of the Democrats who can garner enough votes to finish in the top two. We simply cannot allow the election of our next governor to come down to a choice between the two Republicans we were treated to on Tuesday, both of whom need to be stuffed in a sack and hit repeatedly with sticks or at least heavily medicated and sent far away – somewhere tranquil and relaxing with a view of a tree and a stream. And a book of poems by Carl Sandburg. And a mug of herbal tea.
Strategically, it’s going to come down to numbers. Of the two Republicans, Hilton (with Trump’s endorsement) leads Bianco (the Oath Keeper); on the Democratic side, Beccera and Steyer are neck and neck, with Becerra slightly ahead. If those supporting other Democrats threw their support behind one or the other (Becerra or Steyer), that would ensure a Democrat vs. Republican ballot in November. So I think, for me, it’s got to be either Becerra or Steyer at this point. I am not happy about that.
