For San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the choice is now a simple one: either he does something to turn Democrats against Attorney General Jerry Brown or he loses next June’s primary for governor.
Whatever slim chance there was that the Democratic campaign for California’s top job wouldn’t turn into the usual mud bath likely vanished Thursday when a new Field Poll showed Newsom running 20 points behind Brown.
That’s double the 10-point lead Brown held last March. The new poll also showed the former governor smoking the three likely GOP challengers in head-to-head trial heats for the November 2010 election. Combine that with Brown’s nearly $6 million dollar lead in the money race and Newsom can see his chances of moving to Sacramento slipping rapidly away.
Since the new poll numbers make it even more unlikely that Brown is going to hit the campaign trail anytime soon, it’s up to Newsom to start making political life miserable for the attorney general.
Newsom’s campaign took the first tentative steps toward roughing Brown up earlier this week when Nick Clemons, the mayor’s campaign manager, took Brown to task for headlining a fund-raiser last week for San Bernardino District Attorney Mike Ramos, a conservative Republican.
“At a time when the state Republican Party refused to help solve the crisis that pushed California to the brink of collapse … why would Jerry Brown do this?” Clemons asked in a letter to Newsom supporters.
While a spokesman for Brown argued that Ramos, like all district attorneys, holds a non-partisan office, it would be hard for Brown to say that with a straight face. Kamala Harris, San Francisco’s district attorney, is running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. Rod Pacheco, Riverside County’s district attorney, spent three terms as a GOP assemblyman. And Brown’s own father parlayed his “non-partisan” job as San Francisco’s district attorney into a stint as attorney general and eight years as a very Democratic governor.
The Ramos attack probably doesn’t mean much to anyone but party insiders, but it’s at least a start at chipping away at Brown’s support among Democrats. And with nearly 40 years in politics, the attorney general’s past is a target-rich environment for Newsom’s attacks.
But a couple of months ago, Democratic leaders in Los Angeles and San Francisco starting urging Brown and Newsom to sign “clean campaign” pledges.
“Democrats cannot afford a negative, bruising primary that leaves our nominee weakened and damaged going into the general election,” read the resolution approved by San Francisco Democratic Party leaders last August.
Brown’s people quickly said they’d be happy to promise to play nice from now until June, which should give an idea of who benefits from a polite, low-key and, dare we say it, boring primary campaign.
Now anyone who believes that the “negative, bruising primary” between Democrats Phil Angelides and Steve Westly was the reason Angelides lost to Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 wasn’t paying attention. Republicans have plenty of their own opposition researchers, so an attack-filled Democratic primary isn’t going to reveal anything they don’t already know – or plan to use. And the list of “clean primary” supporters in San Francisco includes plenty of local political types all too happy to toss a banana peel in front of Newsom.
If a candidate can’t say why he’d do a better job than his opponent, what can he talk about? And is it really negative campaigning to suggest that the other guy has bad judgment or has done a lousy job in other offices he’s held?
Truth is, the only real difference between comparison ads – which are good – and attack ads – which are bad – is whether you’re the sender or the receiver.
With his political situation growing increasingly desperate, Newsom has to change the terms of the debate. Expect him to take aim at Brown’s time as Oakland’s mayor, argue that the attorney general isn’t progressive enough for California and cautiously suggest that the years have passed the 71-year-old former governor by.
An attack strategy carries plenty of risks for Newsom. The new Field Poll showed that 40 percent of California voters already have an unfavorable opinion of the mayor and going all negative, all the time, won’t help that number. There’s also the matter of Newsom’s own well-publicized record of personal and political woes, so he’s in a bit of a glass house when it comes to throwing stones.
But as Mr. Dooley, Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional Irish bartender, said decades ago, “Politics ain’t beanbag.”
Newsom is raising millions of dollars for his campaign and knows that, in politics, there’s no silver medal for second place. If it takes a direct attack on Brown to boost the mayor’s chances next June, stand by for nastiness.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.