Gavin Newsom says “it’s absurd” that anyone would think he’d give up the race for governor and lower his sights to the second spot on the ballot.
“It’s Jerry Brown who’s putting those rumors out,’’ the mayor told the Chronicle.
There’s two bits of bad news for Newsom connected with the Sunday story. First, the story is coming from people close to the mayor and his campaign, not from the Brown camp.
But second, and even more dismaying for the mayor, is that just about the only person in California who thinks the rumor is ridiculous on its face is Newsom.
The talk about a lieutenant governor option has been swirling around the Newsom campaign for months. When Michela Alioto-Pier announced in late July that she was running for state insurance commissioner rather than lieutenant governor, there was immediate speculation that Newsom, who had appointed her to his old seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, had asked her to stay out of the LG race.
Both the Newsom camp and Alioto-Pier quickly dismissed the rumors. But by early August, the story had become so pervasive that Garry South, Newsom’s sharp-tongued political consultant, said he’d have the mayor “kidnapped by one-eyed aliens from Pluto” if he thought a run for lieutenant governor was in the offing.
But here it is, more than two months later, and that story is still making the rounds.
Truth is, the way Newsom’s campaign has been going recently, an early exit from the governor’s race is looking more and more like a reasonable option.
Although it’s more than seven months until next June’s Democratic primary, Newsom is running 20 percentage points behind Brown in the latest Field Poll. He’s losing to Brown in every part of the state and is viewed far less favorably than the former governor and current attorney general.
Then there’s the whole money thing. The June 30 campaign finance reports showed Brown with $7.3 million in the bank, compared to $1.2 million for Newsom. But when former President Bill Clinton announced his support for Newsom and spent an afternoon with him in Los Angeles on Oct. 5, the mayor’s supporters were quick to tout the endorsement as a game-changing event that would transform the race for governor.
Ah, not so far. A look at the financial records in the Secretary of State’s office shows that Newsom has raised about $155,000 in contributions of $5,000 or higher since Oct. 1, compared to about $470,000 for Brown in the same period.
As for the Oct. 5 cocktail party/fund-raiser with Clinton at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the records show only four $5,000 checks were written that day for Newsom, which suggests the event was less than a smashing financial success.
South told the Contra Costa Times that the event wasn’t ever intended to raise big money, but was designed to get “young professionals” interested in Newsom’s campaign.
In politics, however, downplaying a fundraiser works a lot better when it’s done before the event is held, not after the checks are cashed.
The Clinton endorsement likely will pay dividends down the road and Newsom may be pulling in tons of cash in donations of less than $5,000, since those numbers don’t have to be made public until Feb. 1, the next campaign filing deadline.
But Brown also could be pulling in those under-the-public-radar cash and he’s out-raising Newsom in the big dollar contributions that can be tracked publicly. Newsom is also burning through that money far faster than Brown, who’s barely willing to suggest he’s even running for governor.
During a political campaign, everything is a rumor until the day it becomes true, which means that denials from Newsom and South about a lieutenant governor option should be taken with an unspoken “as of right now” at the end of each sentence.
But if they really want to squelch those rumors, they’re going to need a flood of cash and a big bump in the polls. Otherwise, people will keep talking.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics