After introducing Gavin Newsom to an adoring crowd last night, Chuck Reed split early. He had a date in DC, where he will join Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders in an effort to bring some federal money to California. Newsom skipped the trip, choosing to raise some campaign money for his gubernatorial bid while his colleagues are doing the state’s business.
Along with Newsom came a flock of San Francisco reporters, including former Metro newsman Will Harper, now managing editor of SF Weekly. Harper reported the event on his blog, and (typically) included some unique insights, including the following:
“Is Gavin a Deadhead? When it came out that a questioner shared the same name as the Grateful Dead’s late frontman, Newsom couldn’t resist quoting Jerry Garcia: “You don’t want to be the best of the best, you want to be the only one who does what you do.” Somehow Newsom related this back to education, which, frankly, I didn’t understand because I wasn’t on acid.”
Newsom (and Jerry Brown) crack me up. How can those guys think that they have a chance to get elected Governor with their respective track records? Brown did nothing for Oakland, and what has Newsom done for SF?
I have mixed emotions about Reed going to D.C. to lobby. Yes, he’s doing his job…but what if San Jose/Silicon Valley were the only region in the country to say…we’re not taking any bailout money…we’ll work our way out of this. Wouldn’t such a message and attitude create a lot of buzz and good P.R. for this area? (This is one of the richest regions on the planet, and we need a bailout?)
pete campbell
Maybe Pete would rather have Steve “I can buy the Governor’s Mansion” Poizner or Meg “John McCain is our only hope” Whitman.
Dunno if you were at the town hall last night but Newsom did mention things he’s done for SF. It’s not an easy city to govern and certainly nobody should expect him to turn things around completely over the last 6 years. But he makes a good case when he talks about how he’s been able to work with a hostile Board of Supervisors to get stuff done in the areas of healthcare, education, and homelessness. San Francisco has been self-sufficient in it’s fiscal situation while in the meantime things sank in Washington and Sacramento thanks to Dubya and Ahhhhnold.
Mr Campbell, pride is too petty a holdup. The dollars are going to be handed out. It is now a decision of whether we should apply them to 1/8th of the country (that’s California) or leave that fraction struggling as is. Noble examples are not practical here.
Pete—the crime rate dropped precipitously during Mayor Moonbeam’s time in Oakland. And crime is the #s 1 through 10 issues in Oaktown.
Gavin Newsom has tried to work to accomplish some of his proposals as Mayor of San Francisco given the Board of Supervisors with Aaron Peskin, one of the oddest elected officials in California. Pete Campbell is an acknowledge Reed apologist who cannot forsee a world without Reed or a world where the Irish will be let in Pete’s neighborhood.
#4 John Michael: crime dropped in Oakland during Brown’s watch? Maybe a little bit, but it was still the Wild, Wild, West.
Newsom’s a game show host…Feinstein will crush him.
Now that the Dems have the Senate back, Feinstein has latched on to some choice committee assignments, so she might decide to stick with that and not run for governor. So all the other potential candidates are starting to position themselves.
I’m not sure if Newsom would be my pick for governor but I think he’s done an OK job as mayor, given the peculiarities of the city he’s in.
Newsom slept with his best friend’s wife…What else do you need to know about that slimeball?
Newsom and VivaLaRaza from L.A. are not much more than empty suits, vying for publicity and jumping like puppets, with strings being pulled by ultra-liberal parasites.
#10. I don’t think its quite the same as having sex with your BEST FRIEND’S WIFE…What kind of guy does that?
#9. Newsom’s first problem on being elected was that he was distrusted as the right-wing Chamber of Commerce candidate by much of the SF electorate. Hence the gay marriage stunt to shore up his support on the leftward side without having to spend money on anything, since the city was already short on cash.
That seems to have worked successfully, so in the short term it was an astute political move. But statewide he may be so associated with that issue that he may find it difficult to establish himself as someone who can handle the many issues that a governor needs to deal with.
#8. On the national level only Republicans are allowed to get away with such behavior. A tearful mea culpa by the side of some religious leader usually suffices as atonement. Hence Gingrich, McCain, Vitter, etc., just keep on going, while Dems like Spitzer and Edwards crash and burn. But is the same true at the state level?