For Gavin Newsom, selling California may be harder than selling himself

California Political Review  

"Conventional wisdom holds that California is an albatross for Newsom’s widely-anticipated White House bid — a state that is too progressive, too pricey, too polarizing to appeal to swing voters in battleground states."

"Gavin Newsom’s presidential hopes may hinge not only on how he sells his own image, but, as he implicitly made clear on Thursday, whether he can remake his home state’s as well. The latter may be the harder challenge.

"Conventional wisdom holds that California is an albatross for Newsom’s widely-anticipated White House bid — a state that is too progressive, too pricey, too polarizing to appeal to swing voters in battleground states.

"But Newsom sought to flip the script in his final State of the State address, unapologetically trumpeting California as a road map for the rest of the nation, naysayers be damned.

"It was the most robust preview yet of the governor’s likely 2028 strategy: Convince voters to back him not in spite of his California connections, but because of them.

“ 'We are a beacon,” he told state lawmakers and officials in his Capitol address. “The state is providing a different narrative — an operational model, a policy blueprint for others to follow.

”Newsom’s muscular pro-California rhetoric is an extension of the defiant posture he assumed last year as a social media provocateur and vanguard of the national redistricting fight. The “post first, apologize later (or never)” strategy propelled the governor to the heart of the political zeitgeist — and most early 2028 Democratic primary polls. 

"The speech demonstrated Newsom’s intention to rewrite the California crack-up narrative that dominates conservative cable news channels, social media and podcasts, all of which the governor voraciously consumes. He diagnosed the state’s skeptics as suffering from “California Derangement Syndrome,” an unsubtle echo of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the preferred way for President Donald Trump’s supporters to dismiss condemnation." . .  .

"The question for Newsom even before it comes to far-flung early primary states is whether his own residents agree. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, which regularly tracks sentiment, a majority of Californians have believed the state is on the wrong track for more than three years. In overwhelmingly blue California, the gloomy outlook cannot just be attributed to partisan Fox News viewers."   Full article here...

Gavin Newsom, ‘King of Fraud’  "During a Fox and Friends broadcast Thursday, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli branded California Gov. Gavin Newsom “the king of fraud.” He didn’t stop there. He declared, “There’s never been this much fraud in American history.”. . . 

Newsom’s strategy in his State of the State address of fraudulently claiming he achieved greatness in California may just be his interim plan while he remains in office. Once he leaves the governor’s office, he may rush past California’s disasters and hope voters never look too closely at the record he leaves behind.