California Gov. Gavin Newsom has assured Joe and Jill Biden that he won’t challenge the president in the 2024 election and vows not to run even if the 80-year-old president retires from political life.
The news moves Newsom’s piece from the 2024 political chessboard — perhaps.
Newsom was obviously making moves to run in the next presidential election cycle but for some reason changed his mind. Indeed, Newsom even rebuffed the shuffling, forgetful, and forgettable president when he made a campaign trip to California before the 2022 midterms. Newsom was off touting his children’s book instead. The Sacramento Bee reported that Newsom took shots at Biden’s obvious frailties, saying he’d “intimated that Biden, who turned 80 this week, was no longer up to the job” and calling him a man “hard-wired for a different world.”
Newsom’s unseemly billboards and campaign ads in the freer and more open states of Florida and Texas, where his fellow Californians fled, seemed petty even by Democrat standards and showed he was ready to mix it up with the Republican Party’s strong horses.
Newsom’s billboards likened killing unborn babies to “loving your neighbor.”
Gavin Newsom Runs Abortion Billboards Saying Killing Babies is “Loving Your Neighbor” https://t.co/Q187ZjO6MW pic.twitter.com/j50I9xgdhJ
— LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) September 15, 2022
Newsom’s own in-laws fled to Florida to get away from the COVID-19 lockdowns that their son-in-law imposed.
Politico reported that Newsom assured the Bidens on what we used to call Election Day that he was “all in” and said, “put me in coach,” according to reporter Jonathan Martin, who said he accidentally overheard Newsom’s phone call to Biden making that commitment. But of course, Newsom may not run for president in 2024 because he might be Biden’s vice presidential candidate. After all, Kamala Harris is just that awful.
Newsom protests too much “without prompting.”
“It’s frustrating because I have so much reverence and respect for not only the president but the vice president is an old friend, for all of those interesting things you guys all love to write about, we’ve known each other for 25 years,” Newsom goes on, bringing up Vice President Kamala Harris without prompting.
Newsom may be a “super surrogate” on the campaign trail instead.
Newsom’s declaration means, according to Politico, that the California governor is free to act with “more purity of heart.”
Most of all, though, it’s DeSantis who Newsom is eager to tangle with. Now reelected, the Californian wants to travel more – and he hopes to carry his message to red states like Florida, where he said he’ll compare his record on Covid, crime and, most of all, how Newsom defines “freedom” to DeSantis.
“I’m willing to take risks, I’m willing to get out and I’m telling you with certainty that I look forward to getting out more not with any grand ambition except to push back on this narrative and try to reframe this debate and get back on offense on freedom,” said Newsom.
I heard that. It’s not polite to laugh quite so loudly in public.
Perhaps the political math is that Democrats believe a basement-dwelling Biden can defeat Trump again in 2024 and they’re saving Newsom to face DeSantis in a hypothetical 2028 matchup but all the more reason to put him in hapless Kamala’s job early to tune him up for the job.
For now, Newsom likely will be a “super surrogate” for Biden and is ready to be the political hitman against “target” Elon Musk for his takeover of Twitter. After all, if the Democrats aren’t in charge of everything, then the political universe is out of order.
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