About Last Week… California Democrats Seem to Know They Have a Problem

At last week’s Democratic state party convention, they had to face a gauntlet of angry Hamas supporters, both physically outside the hall and philosophically inside the hall.

The problem is that the Democratic standard bearer in the race to replace DiFi – horrors of horrors – may very well be a very white very Jewish very (hmm, not sure about that…) man in the form of Congressman Adam Schiff.

Put aside for the moment that Schiff lies and leaks more than Pinocchio with a bladder condition and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deep State, Inc. and put aside for the moment he abused his position as chair of the House Intelligence Committee so nakedly that he was not just removed as chair when Republicans took over but was even removed from the committee itself – those are both rational appropriate reasons to not let Schiff near the Senate.

Instead, Democrats seemed to focus on issues of optics and, though he has pretty consistently led (barely) in the polls to replace Feinstein, Schiff will never be able to crack that final Democratic mystery because of who he is.

This time, I say YAY! For DEI!

The convention did give the most votes to Rep. Barbara Lee when it came to endorsing a Senate candidate, but she couldn’t quite get over the 50% mark needed.  Lee got about 42%, Schff got about 40%, and Rep. Katie Porter got about 16%.  Public polling, though, has showed Schiff with a slight lead over Porter with Lee actually now trailing Republican Steve Garvey, so the endorsement would have been a very big deal to her candidacy, especially since Gov. Newsom decided to pick a different black woman – Laphonza Butler –  to fill (temporarily) Feinstein’s seat (wonder who she’ll endorse?)

As for Porter’s distant third place showing at the convention, it seems surprising until you remember an important fact: most of the delegates have actually personally met her.

Speaking of meeting, Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will do so in Georgia on Thursday (not strictly ‘about last week,’ but, tough.)

Over the past few months – with DeSantis’ campaign having been a central Asian multiple incursion that Meg Whitman’s consultants would be proud of – it had seemed that Ron needed this way more than Gavin.

But with the largely negative fallout from Newsom’s global galivant, Gavin now needs it to go very well, too.  That means Gavin will most likely go full jargonaut as he usually does when asked to, um, “explain” why the state is in such a roiling mess (remember, this is billed as the “Red State Vs. Blue State” debate.)

DeSantis cannot let that happen, he cannot let Newsom confuse-a-filibuster his way through the 90 minutes.  He needs to throw him off his game from nearly the get-go – let the nation see Gavin in all his nonsensical glory and then drop the hammer.

And, amazingly enough considering who, what, and where he is now, DeSantis should take a cue from Stephen Colbert – yeah that guy.

Because before his utter woker-than-woke conversion was complete, Colbert could make a good point here and there. With one guest – I cannot find the clip and am pretty sure it’s waaaaay buried or literally gone – near the beginning of the Hilary/Barack Democratic nomination contest he agreed that Obama shifted personas based upon his audience and tended to be “as black as it was convenient to be.”

Interviewing Gavin in 2013 about his book Citizenville – imagine reading Gavin instead of merely having to listen to him – Colbert actually called him out on his nonsense:

Newsom: “The whole idea is this: Right now we have a broadcast model of governing. You vote and I decide. You understand this intimately. You’ve seen the contours of this change with the media, you’ve seen it, certainly, in the music industry. Big is getting small, small is getting big. Technology has the ability to level the playing field—

Colbert: “What the fuck does any of that mean? … The big is getting small and the small is getting big? What are you talking about? Is there a glossary [in the book]? Is there a bullshit translator?”

It is this type of thing DeSantis must do, in part because it is absolutely 100% true and in part because Newsom really really doesn’t like it when he is challenged and he will be on his back foot for the rest of the debate.

Remember this gem from the recall campaign, his chat with the editorial folks from the Bee newspapers?

That’s the Newsom DeSantis wants to debate and the Newsom the nation needs to see with its own eyes.

From an earlier story on the recall video:  

Two things, though: if you try to play the “Damn!” drinking game you will end up in a coma or worse so please do not.

Second, while Twitter can often be a morass of irritation, occasionally a comment appears that is hilariously on-point.  So credit where credit is due, Pete Campbell @googlewell, for coming up with this gem after watching the video:

“Good thing California doesn’t have nuclear weapons.”

Thanks for reading the Globe!