Newsom is style over substance

[cartoon id="294544"] During the last year, I've written thousands of words predicting California Gov. Gavin Newsom would not only fail in his lustful quest for the White House, but would not even be nominated. Newsom was too slick, had made too many missteps — from the French Laundry fiasco to his shameful muddling of the devastating Palisades fires — to advance in the primaries. Lying with impunity was not the path forward. Now I've changed my mind. For Newsom, lying may be the most expeditious route to the United States presidency. Dishonesty is a Newsom specialty. The Election Day wipeout in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and California, where Newsom's Proposition 50 redistricting bill won handily, provided insights into the winners' weak political résumés. These failings in years past might have automatically removed flawed candidates from the race. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the most glaring example. Although New York has long been a bastion of liberalism, Rudy Giuliani's two terms as Republican mayor (1994 to 2001) are within living memory and light-years away from the socialist, Uganda-born Mamdani, who campaigned on the impossible-to-deliver platform of free or cheaper goods and services. Mamdani is an obvious example of deceitful campaigning. But New Jersey provides another good example of what happens when voters fail to do their due diligence. Mikie Sherrill, now New Jersey's newly elected Democratic governor, overcame multiple layers of alleged scandal regarding a Naval Academy testing debacle, campaign finance violations, and insider trading breaches that violated Federal Election Commission standards. A New Jersey legislator accused Sherrill of breaking provisions of the federal STOCK Act, which requires members of Congress to promptly disclose stock trades and prohibit the use of nonpublic information for personal financial gain. Since she entered Congress, Sherrill's trades increased her net worth by more than $7 million. On immigration, an important national concern, Sherrill voted against internal and border enforcement 100% of the time. On to Virginia, where former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger's credentials are also awful. Before she resigned her U.S. House seat, Spanberger was an analyst for the disgraced Central Intelligence Agency. She voted straight down the line with President Joe Biden, including against immigration enforcement, and thereby apparently satisfied Virginians' craving for a Biden redo. In the "Old Dominion" state, Democrat Jay Jones handily beat incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, despite the October 3 revelation of Jones's email, in which he said he'd like to murder a Republican opponent and see his children die in their mother's arms. Spanberger refused to repudiate Jones, implicitly endorsing a candidate who fantasized about murdering children. Since surviving a 2021 recall against Larry Elder and cruising to reelection a year later, Newsom has transformed his governorship into a national platform. He has sparred publicly and often with President Donald Trump, debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox News, appeared on a podcast with Charlie Kirk, and used his Campaign for Democracy PAC to boost Democratic candidates and causes across the country. Momentum, aided by a media that refuses to ask tough questions, is propelling Newsom toward the top of the Democrats' heap. Newsom promotes himself as a Trump-slayer whose Prop. 50, assuming the Supreme Court approves it, will put Congress back in Democrats' control. In this era where superficiality wins elections, even if the media exposed the true Newsom to the nation's 2028 presidential voters, it may not matter. Still, for the curious, a sampling: California has a $20 billion budget deficit created in part by Newsom's ill-advised decision to extend Medi-Cal benefits to all illegal immigrants regardless of age. In May, Newsom announced he would, effective 2026, drastically reverse the costly program—cuts that would save the state billions. Only two states had wider income gaps than California. Families at the top of the income distribution earned more than 11 times those in lower brackets — $336,000 vs. $30,000. Newsom's bullet train to nowhere is historically American politics' biggest boondoggle. Originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008, with a San Francisco to Los Angeles line set to open by 2028, the California high-speed rail system has since ballooned to $135 billion, with an estimated partial completion being set somewhere in the 2030s. Last year in March, the California High Speed Rail Authority confirmed that the system still needed an additional $100 billion to link up San Francisco and Los Angeles. Several independent investigations found that the $100 million raised during the FireAid benefit concerts held in January 2025 has not gone to fire victims as promised but rather to nonprofits that often use the funds to support illegal aliens and their advocates. In early January, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires raged across parts of Los Angeles. By the time they were fully extinguished in late January, 31 people died, over 18,000 structures were destroyed, and tens of thousands of residents were displaced with destroyed or damaged homes. Total property and home losses have been estimated to be between $76 billion and $131 billion. Yet, as of June, only 68 rebuild permits have been issued. Any of these failures should dampen pro-Newsom voters' enthusiasm. But given the aversion voters have toward weighing hard facts, the presidential election may hinge on the popularity of Newsom's heavily gelled hairstyle. Like it or not, substance has taken a back seat to style. - Copyright 2025 Joe Guzzardi, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at [email protected].