Well, that was an endorsement.
Former President Bill Clinton was at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, giving an effusive blessing to Lt. Gov. John Garamendi’s run for Congress.
Clinton gave a long and personal salute to Garamendi, citing his years of work on health care and the environment.
“We need people in Congress like John Garamendi has been, not just in this campaign, but all his life,” Clinton said.
The former president’s ode to Garamendi stood in contrast to the rather more perfunctory public endorsement he gave to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in Los Angeles Monday.
At an appearance at Los Angeles City College with Newsom, Clinton generously praised the mayor, but only referred obliquely to Newsom’s run for governor against Attorney General Jerry Brown.
“San Francisco may be the greenest city in America and it’s because of his leadership,’’ Clinton told the crowd during his speech. “That’s why I’m here today, because Gavin Newsom has walked the walk, he just doesn’t talk about it.
“I spent a lot of my life doing this, so I’m thrilled he has done it and wants to do it on a larger scale.”
Of course, Clinton also showed up at a big bucks fund-raiser for Newsom Monday evening, so any grumpiness Team Newsom may have had about the relatively subdued tone of the endorsement likely evaporated as the checks were tallied.
It’s not really fair to compare the two endorsements, though. Clinton’s not running for anything anymore, but it’s still tough to turn away from the lessons of a lifetime in party politics.
Newsom is in the middle of a stiffly contested Democratic primary for governor. While Clinton is no friend of Brown, who all but accused Clinton and his wife, Hillary, of being crooks during the 1992 presidential primary campaign, Democrats, especially ex-presidents, don’t typically trash other Democrats during a primary.
While Newsom and his advisors – hey there, Garry South – would have been delighted to see Clinton take off on Brown, they’re grateful enough for the endorsement and the public face time, which they hope can translate into both much needed campaign cash and equally important credibility for Newsom, who’s running well behind Brown in early polls.
An example of that lack of respect was an item in a Los Angeles political blog Monday saying that South, a veteran of a number of statewide campaigns, has been bluntly telling both Newsom and other political insiders that the mayor needs to either raise $5 million for the governor’s race by Jan. 1 or make other political plans.
South wasted no time in trashing the story, telling the Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci that it was, er, steer manure and that Newsom’s in the governor’s race to stay.
But the very fact that stories like that are circulating through the blogosphere shows how badly Newsom’s campaign needs a stature boost. And with some political pros suggesting that Brown could have $20 million in the bank by the end of the year, some money might be nice, too.
But to get back to the endorsements, Clinton had no trouble piling the glitter on Garamendi, since he’s the official Democratic nominee in the Nov. 3 special election for the Contra Costa-centric 10th Congressional District. That’s what popular ex-presidents do.
It also helps that Clinton and Garamendi have known each other for years and that both Garamendi and his wife, Patti, served in the Clinton administration.
The ex-president spoke warmly about how his life “has been intertwined for the last 18 years with the Garamendi family,” and talked casually about how “Al (Gore) and me and John” worked on the U.S. response to the 1997 Kyoto treaty to limit greenhouse gases.
Clinton spoke for more than 20 minutes about the health care crisis, the need for green jobs and how Garamendi has been in the middle of those fights for years.
“I’m here because I love John,” Clinton said. “You need to send someone to Congress who understands (those problems). John Garamendi is that person.”
Clinton supports Newsom and he made that clear Monday. But the ex-president has a long-standing personal relationship with Garamendi and that counts for plenty in politics – and in political endorsements.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.