To America, a Letter of Introduction for Gavin Newsom
Photo CC 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. This column is edited and published by Zócalo Public Square.
Dear America,
America, you and Gavin think you know each other, but the truth is that you are new to him, and he is new to you. I write in hope of avoiding misunderstandings. I’m concerned about how the two of you will get along.
My worries are grounded in the historic nature of Gavin’s unofficial but obvious presidential candidacy:
Gov. Newsom is the most thoroughly Californian person to mount a major campaign for president in the history of the United States. A legal resident of Northern California for all 59 years of his life who has traveled and studied this state thoroughly, Gavin might be the most Californian person alive.
It is unprecedented to have a president, or even a major candidate for the office, so grounded in any one state. That’s right—I looked it up. Every single person who has been elected president previously resided in some other state or in DC, often for college or military service or federal office.
And while there have been Californian presidents and near-presidents, none were as completely Californian as Newsom. John C. Frémont, the 1856 Republican presidential nominee, represented California in the U.S. Senate but was an explorer who grew up in Georgia and South Carolina. Richard Nixon, born in Yorba Linda and raised in Whittier, shipped off to North Carolina for law school and lived in D.C. and New York as a congressman, vice president, and lawyer. Ronald Reagan was from Illinois and moved here in adulthood to work in Hollywood. The 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris pitched herself as a Berkeley girl and Oakland adult, but she spent much of her childhood in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Montreal, went to college in D.C., and lived in D.C. as a senator and vice president.
Gavin? While he’s traveled around the country and the world, he’s lived mostly in Marin, had stints in San Francisco and the Sacramento area, attended college at Santa Clara, and spent a ton of time in Tahoe and the Sierra. Sure, there was a formative post-college tour of Europe, and he makes frequents visits to his in-laws in Montana. But his life and worldview are entirely rooted in the Golden State.
So if this Marin boy gets homesick on the trail and starts talking about hiking Mt. Tam, driving through the Williams Tunnel, swimming in the Inkwells, or spotting George Lucas at breakfast in San Anselmo, please recognize that he’s just reminiscing about home, not bragging.
Because Gavin is so Californian, I fear you might get the wrong idea about him. The right-wing media-political ecosystem follows him with a constant trail of misinformation and disinformation about California and his policies. On his left flank, Newsom faces steady anger from mindless California progressives—a cohort of inherently unhappy people who always think the apocalypse is nigh (which, to be fair, they are right about)—who don’t like his occasional moderate apostasies. And in the mostly checked-out California center, there is just general annoyance with how he looks: the perfectly coifed hair, the nice clothes, the sense that he is putting on airs.
Don’t be fooled by how Newsom appears or sounds. He may project that slick California vibe, but that smooth exterior masks constant, furious paddling beneath the surface. Under the hair lies a massive nerd, who can be awkward in person.
People assume he’s strictly an urban type, a creature of San Francisco high society, who can’t hack it in much of America. But in life and as governor, he’s spent a ton of time in rural California. He hikes, he paddles down rivers, and he once held a cabinet meeting in tiny Porterville, deep in the Central Valley. He loves the Sierra foothills so much that he named one of his kids Dutch, after Dutch Flat—a historic Gold Rush town of fewer than 200 people. He’ll be genuinely excited to visit tiny, out-of-the-way places in New Hampshire, South Carolina, or New Mexico.
The real Newsom is way better than the caricatures. He is relentless, gives detailed answers to your questions, acknowledges mistakes, and has a deep-seated compulsion to solve everything. There is almost always a plan, a program, a subsidy, or a digital tool.
If he manages to stay in the campaign for a while, eventually he will annoy you. You will wish that he talked less. Pro tip: Eat a full meal and hydrate before attending a Newsom event, because he can easily go on talking ideas for three hours.
Some people who have worked for Newsom think his burning desire to do everything is rooted in white guilt or rich-guy noblesse oblige. Or it might come from his career as an owner of restaurants and wineries. He runs California like a concierge who knows that the customer, however obnoxious, is always right. His tendency to agree with opponents or critics in conversation comes from the same place. It also explains his bad habit—which has long bedeviled his aides—of changing his mind and going a different direction on a project or bill at the very last minute.
To his credit, his relentlessness has translated to a huge record of accomplishment. He expanded California’s social safety net, with childcare and universal health care coverage that included the undocumented, and added a whole new grade of school and free community college. He closed prisons, made big progress on housing and homelessness, and did hundreds of other things, with many successes and many failures.
So, America, have at him. Put him through his paces. Just please make sure he gets back to us in one piece, especially if this whole campaign thing doesn’t work out. A president so thoroughly Californians seems nigh impossible in an era when the U.S. and California feel like two totally different—and warring—countries.
Honestly, I’m hoping he’ll lose quickly and return to me right away. Then the state government could hire him to follow up, or wind down, all the plans and programs he’s launched here, in the only place he’s ever called home.
Sincerely,
California
