Only one California Democrat can reshape the governor’s race. Why hasn’t he? | Opinion
Succession planning is the hallmark of a top-notch manager. It is the only way an organization doesn’t miss a step when the old boss leaves the job and a capable one takes over.
In California, only Gov. Gavin Newsom could have orchestrated a race to succeed him with a clear Democratic front-runner by picking a favorite, making the case, and coaxing would-be candidates early on to step aside.
But Newsom has steadfastly avoided any leadership role. With every passing day, the governor who lives in Marin wants nothing to do with Sacramento, his attention an ocean away.
“I don’t talk about this race,” he told members of the media last month.
His silence has been deafening. It is a silence that has made this race the mess that it is today.
More than any governor’s race in modern history, voters would have benefitted from the perspective of the incumbent. Newsom, with a strong Bay Area base from his years as San Francisco mayor and eight years as lieutenant governor, entered the campaign for governor back in 2018 as the clear favorite. Eight years earlier, in his pursuit of the job for a third time, Jerry Brown barely had to campaign.
This race, however, has felt like a political vacuum, voters coalescing more around indecision than an actual candidate.
Newsom and only Newsom could have filled that void. Only Newsom could have persuaded aspirants to leave the race with a plum appointment to the University of California Board of Regents, or a court, the Public Utilities Commission or some other position of true power. It’s a way for a party to maintain a stable of strong candidates. It’s how a team rewards players with important bench roles.
But Newsom is preoccupied. He recently released a book about himself. Many polls have him as the leading Democratic candidate for president in 2028, a candidacy that Newsom disavows for now.
And for Newsom, there is no upside for getting into succession planning and picking a winner and loser among his political party peers. The math is ugly. More will get angry than happy.
Yet that is what succession planning is all about. It’s vital for a sustainable political party, Democrat or Republican. It’s an unofficial role of a departing governor. Newsom has abandoned California.
Granted, had Newsom championed Bay Area Rep. Eric Swalwell, things would be messy right now. Swalwell’s allegations of sordid sexual behavior with multiple women have come roaring out of the shadows into the spotlight, forcing him out of the race. But the governor today would feel the duty to right the ship and champion an alternative. That duty has been there all along.
Now without party leadership starting with the governor, the race is adrift. With candidates left to make their own case without the highest of political allies, voters are left to choose from a crowded field.
The scenario remains all-too-real that two Republicans could make the runoff for governor in a state that hasn’t elected one to a constitutional office in two decades. Even that isn’t enough to get Newsom to lead his party.
The governor may change his mind and finally speak up, but the best moment for leadership came and went months ago. It’s too much to ask candidates who have vied for the job for this long to suddenly give up. In today’s political fishbowl, there is no room for private diplomacy.
It’s actually a rarity for Democrats to hold onto the governorship in California. When the outgoing Jerry Brown extended the political courtesy of endorsing Newsom back in 2018, Brown showed once again how he was a student of history.
“This is the first time in 120 years that one Democrat can pass on to another,” Brown said. “Democrats get stuff done.”
Newsom didn’t get done what he needed to as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party in California. And now this race for governor is suffering the consequences.