Democrats Worry about Plan G

Democrats worried that they’re stuck with Joe Biden for 2024 may already be souring on the emerging alternative, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.). Last week a number of readers expressed skepticism that Mr. Newsom’s nationwide travels were creating a “base” outside California. A prominent Golden State Democrat seems to share that skepticism.

Mr. Newsom looks to be the Biden back-up plan for insiders in Washington. Politico has already taken to publishing a detailed roster of the California governor’s staff and various other creatures who inhabit the “Newsomverse.” This will be handy for Beltway lobbyists for whom it’s never too early to start schmoozing.

Outside the Beltway, what sparked a reaction among readers of this column was Hannah Wiley’s report in the Los Angeles Times about Mr. Newsom’s visit to Idaho:

At a private fundraiser in the middle of Donald Trump’s America, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was on a mission to help President Biden.

Newsom, who hit the road during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, told a group of roughly 50 Democrats gathered in the backyard of a mansion overlooking the Boise foothills Saturday to make the “powerful case for why we should be passionate, enthusiastic about Biden’s reelection.”

. . . Many of the Democrats who flocked to hear Newsom speak in Idaho and at a separate fundraising event earlier that day in Bend, Ore., said they thought the 55-year-old liberal governor offered a glimpse into the future of their party, a bolder, more charismatic and younger potential heir of Biden’s legacy in the post-Trump years.

Reader Charles Rogers commented:

50 folks in a back yard is ”flocking”?

Silly geese.

Several readers wondered how hard it was to gather the Fabulous Flocking 50 at the same time in the Boise backyard. Perhaps backyards in other towns would have presented greater challenges. Reader Rick Weston commented:

Gavin Newsom in Idaho? He should have gone to Coeur d’Alene which is called “Blue Heaven” due to all the retired LA police officers residing there. He would have received some reception.

Meanwhile John Weber was among the readers who noted that Idaho is among the nearly two dozen states officially condemned by Mr. Newsom’s government for refusing to mimic California’s progressive extremism on social issues. This habit of deploring the free political choices of others while presiding over a state synonymous with poor political decisions doesn’t look like a recipe for national success—at least according to one prominent California Democrat.

In a piece for Vanity Fair, Joe Hagan interviews rising Democratic star Rep. Ro Khanna, who seems to have grasped that the state has problems:

Immigrants, especially Latinos, who make up nearly 40 percent of California’s population, have become increasingly conservative when facing the fallout from progressive cities like San Francisco. While I was in the Central Valley, two hours east, I was told that homeless people from San Francisco were already showing up at the exits off Interstate 5. Santa Clara, which Khanna represents, initially resisted the extension of San Francisco’s BART rail system. “Who’s going to come here?” voters asked him. Khanna points to the former mayor of San Jose, Sam Liccardo, as a success story, in part for increasing the police presence. That California is a tolerant place is “wonderful,” Khanna says, “but that doesn’t mean that you can go smash into a Walgreen’s and steal stuff and not have consequences. There’s got to be that sense of ‘true freedom,’ but that’s got to be checked with the rootedness that other parts of the country provide.”

Khanna is critical of Newsom’s spending on attack ads last year against Ron DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott, which spanked them over treatment of trans children and for banning abortion, while California’s Democratic candidates faced tight races, losing an uncomfortable number to Republicans. “We didn’t win more House seats in California because Gavin’s numbers were much lower, the margin, than they should have been,” he says . . .

In a transparent jab at Newsom, Khanna questions whether California is a proper calling card for national ambitions. “I think the message that says ‘Make America California’ is not a winning message,” he says.

Fact check: True.

The Vanity Fair piece, entitled “Can Anyone Fix California?,” is another in the interesting genre chronicling progressives coming to terms with the failure of progressivism. Mr. Hagan starts his piece in San Francisco with an interview of Rep. Nancy Pelosi

Once in a while, an East Coast journalist will come out to California to find out what’s happening in the land of dreams. As Los Angeles goes, so goes the nation; if San Francisco loses its charm, what then? “It’s what’s coming next for you,” Pelosi says, portentously.

Earlier that afternoon, I’d walked through the Tenderloin and seen drug addicts splayed out on street corners and a hundred human tragedies strewn across UN Plaza, City Hall looming helplessly in the background. Dickens meets Dante. “Oh, it’s sad,” Pelosi remarks. “It’s worse now.”

. . . Increasingly, among Democrats, there is a call for greater toughness. Fear, as Pelosi knows, is contagious. And the “biggest challenge” to California, she says, is “safety.” . . . “Whether you want to call it homelessness or drug use or whatever it is,” she says, “safety is the oath we take to protect and defend—yes, the Constitution, but the people. And how do you do that, respectful of people’s rights, but also respectful of their safety?”

Trying to write about the whole of California is akin to the proverbial blind man trying to describe an elephant. But California, by any measure, is undergoing a vibe shift. As a pal of mine in San Francisco put it, “The liberal atom has been split.”

The liberals and those further left are given plenty of space to air their usual grievances in the article, but it’s not easy to find a silver lining in the dreary story of California. Making an attempt, Mr. Hagan settles on the atoms coming together in fusion experiments at the federal government’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Let’s hope that federal taxpayers get a good return on the money they’ve been required to invest in this research, but on issues where California politicians have a decisive impact, the search continues for that elusive progress.

Mr. Hagan accompanies former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso on a tour of the city’s main homeless encampment, which is the largest in the country:

Skid Row has existed since the late 19th century and expanded to swallow up 50 square blocks of Downtown LA, annexed by drug gangs selling fentanyl and meth. Our guide, a rep for a local business organization, refers to the area as the “ Amazon fulfillment center for drugs.” The LAPD rarely ventures inside. “It’s basically a free zone,” Caruso says grimly . . .

Before we leave, he tells me a story about his friend Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix (and son-in-law of Jacqueline Avant, the home-invasion victim), who put the media company’s offices downtown to try to revitalize an otherwise seedy neighborhood. “When the pandemic ended and people started coming back to office, they were bringing so much feces in that everybody was getting sick in the offices,” says Caruso. “So everybody had to bring extra pairs of shoes.” (A Netflix spokesperson says the anecdote is inaccurate but that Sarandos had related a similar story to Caruso about a different entertainment company.)

Perhaps “Extra Pair of Shoes” could be the title for a ground-breaking Netflix series, assuming that “So Much Feces” is bound to meet consumer resistance. Also, before taking steps, producers will want to carefully examine the ground they’re breaking.

Speaking of compelling narratives, can’t the Democrats find a candidate with both mental acuity and a track record in a state that at least appears to be working?

By the way, Byrhonda Lyons reports for Cal Matters:

As Gov. Gavin Newsom retools the state’s prison system to emphasize rehabilitation, his administration has little evidence that a privately run program for parolees costing taxpayers $100 million a year works to prevent future crime.

The state does not collect data on whether parolees who participate in the program have found jobs or whether they are returned to prison for another crime . . .

When the [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] provided CalMatters with a roster of more than 400 locations providing rehabilitation services, we visited 23 of them, finding some with inaccurate addresses, one with a padlocked gate in front of a seemingly closed site, another that appeared to be abandoned, and three where employees said they were no longer providing rehabilitation services.

So much . . . something.

***

James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”

***

Follow James Freeman on Twitter.

Subscribe to the Best of the Web email.

To suggest items, please email [email protected].

(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Ethel Fenig.)

***