Gavin Newsom’s day in the sun with former President Bill Clinton today in Los Angeles needs to be a turning point in the San Francisco mayor’s run for governor.
Sure, the June Democratic primary is still eight months away and about the only people paying any attention at all to the 2010 race are either running in it or writing about it.
But Attorney General Jerry Brown is working to build a look of inevitability around his purposeful non-campaign and Newsom has to do something quick to convince the opinion-makers inside and outside the party that he’s the real deal, a guy who realistically could be California’s next governor.
What he needs is an event, something that can grab public attention, swing his dismal poll numbers and convince Brown that he actually has to come out and play if he wants to win next June.
Enter Bill Clinton.
The former president will endorse Newsom today as he joins the mayor for a speech and a tour of the new science and technology building at Los Angeles City College. Then it’s off to downtown Los Angeles, where Clinton will headline a fund-raiser for Newsom at the historic Biltmore Hotel.
The cash that dinner will bring in is desperately needed for Newsom’s campaign, but that’s probably secondary as far as the mayor is concerned. For Newsom, the chance to talk about such key campaign issues as education and green technology as Clinton nods approval is something money can’t buy.
Clinton is a certified superstar to California Democrats and his endorsement provides instant credibility in the state. If Clinton is impressed by a 41-year-old mayor making his first try for statewide office, the campaign’s unspoken sales pitch goes, Newsom must be a candidate worth looking at.
Now Newsom and his advisers would like people to believe Clinton jetted in from New York because of an abiding admiration for Newsom and a yearning desire to help California’s voters pick the best candidate possible.
While that might be part of the story, especially since Newsom was a strong Hillary Clinton supporter in last year’s presidential primary, the truth is that Clinton has likely been looking for a chance to stick it to Brown ever since 1992, when the pair butted heads in the Democratic presidential primary.
But since revenge is a much more reliable motivator than gratitude for most politicians, the mayor probably isn’t worried about why the former president is here. It’s enough that he’s in California and spending the day with Newsom.
So far, it’s been a mighty lonesome campaign for the mayor. He’s been barnstorming across the state in a series of well-received town hall meetings and has been talking about his plans for California to anyone who will listen.
But while Newsom can throw the occasional zinger at the 71-year-old Brown, such as suggesting at last April’s state Democratic convention that the primary is a choice between “a sprint into the future” or a “stroll down memory lane,” it’s not nearly as much fun when the other guy won’t fight back.
It’s not nearly as effective, either. Newsom’s campaigning hasn’t dented Brown’s comfortable lead in the early polls or kept the former governor from building up a huge lead in the fund-raising race.
While Brown is raising money for the governor’s race, that and his web site are about the only evidence of a campaign. And if the poll numbers stay the same, he’ll let Newsom keep talking to himself until sometime next year.
And since it’s a political truism that the more you talk, the better your chances of saying something stupid, mum’s the word for the attorney general right now.
Newsom has to change that. To have a chance next June, he needs to force Brown to start campaigning for real, right now. If Brown goes out on the stump, he has to start talking about both his lengthy record and his vision for California’s future.
That gives Newsom a target, a chance to challenge the former governor, and his plans for California, as relics of a time gone by, out of touch with California in the 21st Century. And if voters notice that one candidate is a young, upbeat, energetic guy with a full head of gelled hair while the other is a bald, somewhat cranky politician who’s been on California ballots for almost 40 years, so much the better.
Today’s appearance with Clinton has to be a game-changer for Newsom, a chance to do something to force Brown out of his comfortable non-campaigning campaign.
If it doesn’t work, the mayor could be looking hard for a Plan B.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.