Newsom is going to get lonely without candidate DeSantis to kick around any more | Opinion
After former President Donald Trump, California Gov. Gavin Newsom got the biggest laugh when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis meekly surrendered his presidential ambitions and endorsed Trump, just as Newsom predicted DeSantis would when the two governors debated last November on Fox News.
Newsom couldn’t restrain himself on Twitter Sunday. “Fire sale on Ron DeSantis merch today!”
That was funny, but Newsom should watch himself too. He should be careful because one day Newsom could be the one-state wonder who doesn’t translate outside the warm confines of his state border.
What goes around comes around, governor. The misfortune you mock today may one day be your own.
DeSantis was once the guy beloved by polls and cable news anchors. Then he ran for president and seemed to wear a “kick me” sign every time he left Florida.
Newsom would be wise to study the failure of DeSantis as the California governor has national ambitions as well.
The two governors have some things in common. Coming from a warm state on the physical fringe of the country has its political disadvantages. Newsom is vulnerable to being dismissed by mainstream Americans as being on the political fringe as well. And now he has lost his alter ego in DeSantis.
Aside from the dubious tactic of failing to take Trump head-on in any meaningful way, DeSantis basically said he would govern the nation a lot like he has been governing Florida. It did not work for him. And it certainly would not work for Newsom.
As much as California is in love with itself (in some ways understandably so), the rest of the nation does not want to be anything like us and our politics. It certainly does not want our homeless problem. Or our housing prices. Or our regulations that contribute to a high speed rail line largely across Central Valley farmland costing about $200 million a mile.
A lot of voters would question the real-world impact of Newsom suing “Big Oil” just as much as the ongoing DeSantis crusade against Big Disney.
Gavin Newsom doesn’t have candidate DeSantis to kick around any more. Who is going to pick on now? Nikki Haley?
Gavin Newsom is really going to miss candidate DeSantis. Together, they represented a younger generation to the geriatrics vying for the presidency. They offered energy. New alternatives. A break from the nation’s political past.
The two were at their best when lobbing respective insults from afar. Their Nov. 30 debate on Fox News was turned into an orgy of interruptions, statistics, and poop. Some stages clearly are not to be shared. In this relationship, distance clearly has its advantages.
It seems that we are on a path to a political sequel, another election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, even though the prospect is being met with dismal reviews by an exasperated public. A new poll finds 59 percent of Americans “not at all enthusiastic” or “not too enthusiastic” about the Trump-Biden rematch. Both have strangleholds on their respective parties.
And now, both DeSantis and Newsom are flirting with irrelevance. In California, Newsom is fast approaching lame duck status and, absent any charted political future, unemployment. He has a budget crisis, a property insurance crisis and skyrocketing electricity costs. People are leaving the state at higher rates than they are arriving. And this is true even after factoring in those immigrants flown here from Texas with the help of the Florida governor.
At least DeSantis got as far in presidential politics to have some “merch” for a fire sale.
This story was originally published January 23, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Newsom is going to get lonely without candidate DeSantis to kick around any more | Opinion."