Gavin Newsom Just Took Another Huge Step in His Non-Campaign to Topple Joe Biden

California governor Gavin Newsom is many things, almost all unpleasant, but as of today he’s become something new: proof that it’s possible to run for president without running for president — at least for a while. Wednesday night, something big happened that made his non-campaign for president just a little more real.

The two-term governor, recall election survivor, former San Francisco mayor, and lockdown bon vivant has enjoyed an elevated profile in recent months, and when I say “enjoyed,” I really mean “manufactured.”

It was a year ago July that, with his November reelection “a near-certainty,” CNN Democrat tool (but I repeat myself), Chris Cillizza announced that Newsom “just jump-started the 2024 campaign.”

Over the July 4 holiday, Newsom ran an ad in Florida attacking GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and touting his own governance of California.

“I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight – or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom: Freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate, and the freedom to love,” Newsom says in the ad, which ran on Fox News on Monday.

“What better way to make yourself known nationally,” Cillizza wrote at the time, “than to take a (symbolic) swing at the big Republican on the block?”

Since then, Newsom has been careful to keep his name on the front pages without ever launching an actual bid to topple Doddering Joe. “Gavin Newsom is running for President,” the New York Post’s Douglas Murray wrote in June of this year. “He may not have announced yet, but there’s no doubt about it: he’s off.”

And now there’s a new element to Newsom’s running-not-running-but-running campaign: Florida governor and GOP hopeful Ron DeSantis has agreed to Newsom’s challenge to a mano-a-mano debate. “Absolutely I’m game,” DeSantis told Sean Hannity on Fox News Wednesday night. “Let’s get it done; just tell me when and where. We will do it.”

Fox also reported, “An aide for the California governor told Politico that DeSantis ‘should put up or shut up… Anything else is just games.'”

Well, it looks like the game is on for Newsom — assuming the candidate-not-a-candidate-but-really-a-candidate doesn’t back down from his own challenge.

But, putting aside personalities, ambitions, records of accomplishment, and all the rest, this is one of the more surreal events I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing about in my 21 years of blogging or in my 43 years of following politics.

This Newsom/DeSantis debate is as though Ted Kennedy and, I dunno, George H.W. Bush* agreed to square off in 1979, just as President Jimmy Carter was preparing his reelection campaign and before the GOP primary race even got going.

ASIDE: *I am not actually comparing DeSantis to Bush, except that (at the time of this writing) both poll/polled as the second-favorite among GOP primary voters.

I won’t bother to defend Florida’s record with DeSantis at the helm compared to California’s with Newsom, partly because Florida has outperformed in most every way but mostly because I can’t wait to see DeSantis do it himself. That ought to be some must-see TV.

Already, DeSantis is having fun at Newsom’s expense, taunting him to “Stop pussyfooting around” and just launch a real primary challenge against Biden already. I have to admit, as amusing as it is to refer to Newsom as the “candidate-not-a-candidate-but-really-a-candidate,” at some point soon, he’s going to have to do something more substantial than cosplay as Schrödinger’s Cat.

In a way, the DeSantis/Newsom debate makes Newsom appear more presidential than our alleged actual president, Joe Biden. The Biden campaign has said that Doddering Joe will not participate in any primary debates, despite sizable support in the polls for upstart pretender Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The irony here is that if Biden were to pull an LBJ and decide late in the game that he won’t seek reelection, that would make things more difficult for Newsom. As my friend and colleague Stephen Kruiser has pointed out on numerous occasions, Democrat identity politics would make it virtually impossible for a straight white male like Newsom to displace First POC Kamala Harris from her “rightful” spot at the top of the ticket.

To beat Harris, Newsom would have to come out as both gay and trans and immediately begin the hormonal and surgical transition process.

Well, Governor? How far are you really willing to go in pursuit of that Oval Office you pinky-swear you aren’t running for in 2024?