Election Day is just behind us and the decorations for Christmas 2024 haven’t even gone up anywhere but the department stores, but it appears we have the first candidate for the 2028 election: California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Oh, of course the top Democratic surrogate hasn’t announced his candidacy yet, although he might as well. Less than two days after Donald Trump became the president-elect, Newsom called lawmakers to Sacramento for a special legislative session next month to deal with the new Oval Office occupant before he even takes up residence.
According to The New York Times, the move was made “to safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.”
“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a Thursday statement. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond.”
What “values” and “rights” this might entail is anyone’s guess, although the move seems wholly extraneous on its face.
As the Times noted: “A contingency plan in the event of Mr. Trump’s re-election has been underway for more than a year in Sacramento, involving not only the governor’s office but also legislators and state regulatory bodies.”
In other words, Golden State politicians have been planning for this eventuality for quite some time now — which probably wasn’t a bad idea, given that President Joe Biden’s poll numbers didn’t look so hot back then.
Perhaps they sat on their hands after Vice President Kamala Harris brought her joy and vibes to the campaign in mid-summer, but my offhand guess is no.
“The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said that he and his staff had been conferring with other attorneys general for months and had prepared detailed legal challenges should the former president return to office,” the Times noted.
Will Gavin Newsom run in 2028?
“We won’t be flat-footed come January,” Bonta told the Times.
According to the Times’ report, the issues that Newsom is feigning concern over include access to medication abortion, clean vehicle mandates, repeal of certain programs for illegal immigrants, and the possibility he might “politicize grant programs to commandeer state and local governmental resources for federal purposes.”
“I just called an emergency special session to help bolster our legal resources and protect our state against any unlawful actions by the incoming Trump Administration,” Newsom said in a post on X.
“Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action — we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.”
California is ready to fight.
I just called an emergency special session to help bolster our legal resources and protect our state against any unlawful actions by the incoming Trump Administration.
Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate… pic.twitter.com/fIBPKsehot
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 7, 2024
Given the lack of substance here and the planning already underway, I was reminded of nothing more than former Sen. John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign in the late stages of the 2008 presidential race to return to Washington, D.C., amid the financial crisis and the bailout that followed. It turns out that McCain’s arrival was solely so that he could appear to be doing something while actually contributing zilch — and the media crucified him for it.
Newsom isn’t an official candidate for president (although to be frank, he should have just launched an exploratory committee the moment Pennsylvania was called for Trump, because we all knew what was coming). He’s also a Democrat. Thus, you have two reasons that the media will go soft on him for this.
However, calling the California state legislature back to Sacramento will accomplish next to nothing — especially since both the president-elect and the 119th Congress haven’t even been sworn in yet, much less proposed any legislation. We don’t even know who Trump will pick as staffers, for the love of Pete. Sacramento lawmakers have better things to do with their time, particularly given the housing crisis and crime epidemic in the Golden State.
This is politics at its most cynical. As regular readers will no doubt know, I have no great love for Kamala Harris. However, for her frenemy Newsom to begin posturing and preening as head of #ResistancePartDeux one day after the election was called is twisting the knife, particularly has the liberal media is busy convincing themselves that if Harris gets a chance to run a full campaign, there’s no way she’ll lose.
That’s bunkum, mind you, but so is beginning your presidential run the day after the media called the last presidential election. Not only that, it’s beyond desperate. Rarely has a politician ever looked this thirsty — and that’s saying a lot, given the low standards of most well-heeled opportunists eyeing a White House run.
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