By Tim Redmond
Well, the polls look pretty shitty for Gavin Newsom For Governor (thanks, sfist for the tip), and his ratings will just get worse as he attempts to solve a budget crisis without working with the supervisors or the other key stakeholders. At this rate, the way he’s treating the city employee unions, there’s no way he’s getting labor support, and for a candidate who will be running as a liberal to be shunned by labor is a major problem.
(And if he thinks a movie-star wife will give him some glam, check out the reviews.)
And Newsom’s counterpart to the south, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, ain’t looking so hot right now.
John Garamendi has been reborn as a progressive populist, but a guy who was at best a moderate state legislator is going to have his work cut out for him wooing the left in a primary. And Jerry Brown … well, Jer’s on the right side of the same-sex marriage debate (finally), but he was a terrible mayor of Oakland and has changed his political spots so many times that nobody knows quite which Jerry we’ll get this time around — or whether his current manifestation will last.
Is this really the best the Democratic Party can do?
I guess we should be glad that the Republicans have an even worse lineup. But that’s not exactly something to celebrate.