Gavin's Secret Mission: The California governor may want more than just the presidency

Los Angeles: The governor of California leans to the side in his armchair. His hair perfectly in place, smile plastered on his face; not quite a grimace, but seemingly masking the wheels in motion behind the sparkling eyes. His curled fingers meet as his thumbs straighten, pointing to some unseen point. He’s comfortable in his skin, even though he has just shed an entire layer to reveal a rippling state of transmogrification.

This is the new Gavin Newsom, a lot like the old one, but with one major difference: his opinions seem to have changed.

‘This Is Gavin Newsom’ is not just another podcast cast into the crowded pool of influencers, commentators, hell-raising know-it-alls and complete morons. It is a signal, a flare cast into the dark Democrat sky. He will call it a beacon of hope, but to many in his party, it is the light of surrender.

His first guests have been the startlngly intelligent conservative icon Charlie Kirk and the bellicose kingmaker Steve Bannon. Strange guests considering Newsom is in charge of one of the most liberal states in America, and certainly a piece of land that Bannon looks on with unbridled disdain.

California may not be an off-the-rails liberal stronghold in the vein of Washington, Oregon or Maine, but it’s still far from centrist.

Both conversations were unusually polite, and, especially in the case of Bannon, lacked the combative nature of most dialogue involving the ‘flood-the-zone’ creator. But both were also very enlightening, as much for the content as for the number of times Newsom actually agreed with both Kirk and Bannon (it’s important to note that they agreed with virtually none of his views).

So why has a liberal darling chosen this path less travelled, to rub shoulders and exchange vocal convolutions with people the Democrats wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire? The most simplistic answer is that Newsom is using his podcast as a springboard for a shot at being the Democrats’ 2028 presidential candidate.

If this is true, then it seems almost certain that Newsom will – between now and 2026 – jettison the Democrats’ far-left ideas and move much closer to the center, a la Bill Clinton.

In fact, he broke a long-standing Democrat taboo by agreeing with Kirk on the fact that allowing men to compete in women’s sports was inherently unfair. He also falsely claimed he was always against the use of the bizarre term ‘Latinx’, proclaimed his strong opposition to the ‘Defund the Police’ movement and nodded sagely as Kirk talked about the “corrupt” Black Lives Matter movement.

These are liberal bastions, and Newsom just wandered out of them, turned around, and set them ablaze. If this is his platform, it’s a precipitous one.

Progressives have long memories (just ask anyone who has been a victim of cancel culture) and they will not soon forget Newsom’s ‘betrayal’. But the uber-liberal votes Newsom is sure to lose with his most recent centrist avatar could be replaced by, well, centrist and independent voters. If, that is, they can get a Men In Black memory wipe wand.

But there is also a school of thought that claims Newsom’s latest foray into podcasting could be his way of positioning himself as the Left’s answer to Joe Rogan. But where Rogan has a refreshing sense of wonder when he converses with his array of guests of varied ideologies, Newsom often looks smug. But then again, that’s just maybe Newsom’s default setting.

Newsom will never be Joe Rogan and he shouldn’t even aspire to it, because we don’t need another Rogan. What he needs to be is a cross between Ezra Klein and Megyn Kelly: An extremely intelligent conversationalist, with a fiery passion and loyalty for the causes he believes in.  

But three episodes does not make an influencer nor a platform, and Newsom will need to ensure that every episode does not end with him nodding away while guests who are ideologically opposite lecture him on the error of his ways.

One feels that Newsom is leading up to a sit-down with President Donald Trump. How he handles that conversation will go a long way in showing voters whether Newsom is willing to shed the Left’s most radical and unpopular agendas in favor of those a majority of America supports. If Newsom can succeed at this, there is a good chance that he could be the one to beat in 2028.

But if he doesn’t, then Newsom will always be remembered a smarmy politician with a ‘used car salesman’ vibe who spent the pandemic at the French Laundy, smirked as his state burned, and eventually discarded his political clothing to reveal a naked ambition devoid of any virtues or vision. In short, he would have revealed himself to be Gavin Newsom.