Final week, along side the Democratic Nationwide Conference that nominated Vice President Kamala Harris as a successor to President Joe Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom sat down for a podcast interview to debate what had simply occurred.
“How are you feeling about the switch,” Jon Favreau, the “Pod Save America” host and former White Home speechwriter requested Newsom.
The tone of Newsom’s voice modified from jocular to staccato as he replied, “Now we went through a very open process, a very inclusive process. It was bottom-up, I don’t know if you know that. That’s what I’ve been told to say.”
It could have simply been a throwaway quip, or maybe it was a bitter lament that his occasion rapidly and undemocratically anointed Harris with out giving anybody else an opportunity.
Newsom had been one in all Biden’s staunchest defenders whereas others within the occasion demanded that Biden step away.
Whereas the governor had typically expressed “sub-zero interest” in operating for president, he was doing all of the issues {that a} presidential aspirant can be doing, and it paid off with a flurry nationwide political media consideration.
Many pundits speculated that whereas stoutly defending Biden — particularly in post-debate kibitzing with reporters — Newsom wished to be thought-about as a alternative ought to the president drop out.
In the course of the conference that ratified Harris because the occasion nominee many different Democratic figures got alternatives to deal with the delegates — a time-honored means for formidable politicians to achieve televised publicity to tens of millions of voters.
Newsom was not on the audio system record, nevertheless, and we’ll by no means know whether or not he wasn’t invited or didn’t search a slot. His solely time within the highlight was asserting the California delegation’s unanimous help for Harris through the mock roll name, persevering with the hoary custom of a nominee’s house state offering the decisive vote.
It might be comprehensible if Newsom, as his feedback suggest, is miffed that Harris was anointed with out having to run the gauntlet. Harris has lived a charmed political life, transferring from workplace to workplace and now profitable the presidential nomination with out proving herself in a really contested political duel.
The one time she tried to take action was in 2020, when she briefly ran for president and rapidly stumbled out of consideration, solely to be chosen by Biden as his operating mate.
Newsom might argue that as governor of the nation’s most populous and most complicated state, he can be higher certified than Harris. However he by no means bought the possibility.
So the place does Newsom go from right here?
He has spent precisely half of his 56 years patiently climbing the political ladder, starting in 1996 when Willie Brown, then the mayor of San Francisco and mentor to each Harris and Newsom, appointed him to the town’s Parking and Site visitors Fee.
From that begin, he received a seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, later turned mayor and was poised to run for governor in 2010 when former Gov. Jerry Brown, Newsom’s quasi-uncle from many years of household interconnection, shouldered him apart.
Newsom spent eight years as Brown’s lieutenant governor, California’s least seen statewide workplace, earlier than lastly operating for governor in 2018.
Possibly Newsom can be content material to finish the ultimate 28 months of his governorship and return to peddling wine. However having invested half his life in politics, that appears unlikely.
A cupboard place in a Harris administration? An ambassadorship? In some way these choices don’t compute for a person with an outsized ego.
If he actually needs to be president, his solely reasonable probability can be 2028, however then provided that Harris loses this 12 months. Nonetheless, have been she to lose, there can be a multi-player scramble contained in the occasion — together with a few of those that did have a talking slot on the conference.
