The Democratic Nationwide Conference was a pageant of California love.
There have been glimpses of its considerable pure magnificence. Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar contributed to the soundtrack. Onstage, there have been extra Californians than you’d see at a farmers market on a Saturday morning in Pasadena.
Over 4 days and nights, one speaker after one other sang the virtues of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Oakland-born, Berkeley-raised former state legal professional normal and U.S. senator who now tops the celebration’s presidential ticket.
One obtrusive omission from the completely happy parade: Gavin Newsom.
The Democratic governor had a quick cameo position delivering the state’s delegates to the vice chairman, in a ceremonial vote that ratified Harris because the celebration’s presidential nominee. (The balloting that mattered passed off two weeks prior, in a five-day spherical of on-line voting performed quickly after President Biden dropped out of the race.)
That was it for Newsom.
Conference planners needed him to kick off Monday evening’s prime time programming, however the governor begged off. Couldn’t make it on time, he stated. Kids beginning a brand new faculty 12 months, he defined — although it’s not laborious to think about attending orientation and nonetheless making it to the United Heart, which is lower than a dozen miles from Chicago’s Halfway Airport.
Additionally notably absent was California’s U.S. senator-in-waiting, Rep. Adam B. Schiff, who, alongside Newsom, is among the most politically outstanding Californians not named Harris or Nancy Pelosi. Schiff was additionally supplied a talking slot, however had a longstanding household dedication that saved him away from the conference.
One distinction, in fact, is that Schiff by no means had the fraught relationship with Harris that Newsom does.
It’s hardly a secret the governor very a lot wished he was in Harris’ footwear. All through the week he wore the tight smile of a disillusioned runner-up; the type you see on the Oscars after they flash on the Finest Actor nominees simply earlier than pulling away to indicate the winner take the stage.
Newsom ran a kinda-sorta-but-not-really marketing campaign for president, touring the nation to pitch his political imaginative and prescient and get within the face of red-state politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom Newsom debated on Fox Information. He ran TV advertisements and put up billboards selling himself as a champion of abortion rights. He vigorously defended Biden, when few others might or would after the president’s ghastly debate efficiency.
All for naught, save a variety of hypothesis about what Newsom was actually as much as.
The governor and vice chairman, each merchandise of San Francisco’s elbows-out political tradition, have been working side-by-side for greater than 20 years. They shared lots of the identical donors and the identical geographic base. For a time, they’d the identical crew of marketing campaign strategists.
Newsom informed The Occasions’ Taryn Luna that speak of a sibling rivalry between the 2 extremely aggressive, extremely bold political climbers was “a silly assemble.”
But it surely’s true.
Like siblings, the 2 have a historical past of completely happy occasions, laborious emotions, jealously and mutual support.
Individuals who know each of them nicely stated Newsom was not distressed to observe Harris stumble by way of the early levels of her vice presidency. They usually stated Harris was not terribly displeased to see Newsom compelled to struggle an tried recall, although she did come to California for a homestretch rally on his behalf.
Every is a political professional.
Newsom made the rounds of media interviews in Chicago, saying all the best issues.
“You’ll see me lots out on the marketing campaign path” stumping for Harris, the governor informed Fox Information.
“In 2028, I stay up for reelecting Kamala Harris,” he stated on NBC, forswearing any curiosity in anyway in a future run for president. “In 2032, I hope to be strolling and not using a cane.”
It was curious, then, to listen to an interview launched a day after Democrats closed up store in Chicago, whereby Newsom sarcastically referred to the “30-minute” conference that yielded Harris because the Democratic nominee.
“We went by way of a really open course of, a really inclusive course of,” he joked on the “Pod Save America” podcast. “It was bottom-up, I don’t know if you already know that. That’s what I’ve been informed to say!”
Did Newsom let slip what he actually thought of Harris’ insta-elevation to steer the Democratic ticket? Or was the governor simply taking part in loosy-goosy as he hung with the podcast bros?
The Newsom-Harris competitors is over — for now anyway — and it’s clear who gained.
If Harris is elected president in November, the checkmated governor’s political ambitions will nearly actually be positioned on maintain for at the least the following 4 years. If she loses, it’s not laborious to think about Newsom working as one among many candidates in a crowded area taking over President Trump and pledging to rebuild and revivify a devastated Democratic Celebration.
Within the meantime, he’s a obtained a day job: Working essentially the most populous, diversified and unwieldy state within the union.
