Gov. Gavin Newsom during a visit last fall to San Francisco. (Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova, via Shutterstock)Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared flatly that he is not interested in running for president. “I have sub-zero interest,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board recently. “It’s not even on my radar.” Right.
Photo by Gage Skidmore. www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/In a surprise move, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris suspended her run for the presidency Tuesday ending what had once been a promising campaign, launched with great fanfare in front of 22,000 Oakland supporters. So what happened? Paul Mitchell joins the Capitol Weekly Podcast to weigh in.
Gavin Newsom, flanked by wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom and their children, is sworn in as governor by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, right. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor who roiled Democrats across the country when he issued marriage certificates to same-sex couples, was sworn in Monday as California’s 40th governor. He succeeds the unprecedented, largely successful tenure of four-time governor and fellow Democrat Jerry Brown, who moseyed on back to his 2,500-acre ranch in Colusa.
California Gov. Jerry Brown takes questions from reporters and others at a meeting of the Sacramento Press Club. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press)California’s longest-serving governor will turn things over to incoming Gavin Newsom on Jan. 7, but during a recent public appearance Jerry Brown bathed in the upside of politics. “I like sparring with the press, I like raising money, I like attacking my opponents, I like being attacked by my opponents.”
Sunrise in the Mojave Desert, CAstle Peaks. (Photo: sierralara, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The window of opportunity is rapidly closing for Senate Leader Toni Atkins and the California Legislature to save the Mojave Desert from Cadiz, Inc.’s reckless plan to suck the water out from under one of the Earth’s driest places and sell it to water golf courses and suburban lawns as far away as Orange County. Killed by Barack Obama and revived by Donald Trump, the water mining project would dramatically overdraw the aquifer below the desert and almost certainly stop the flow of water to the springs that preserve the Mojave’s fragile biodiversity.
Oprah Winfrey at a campaign rally for Barack Obama. (Photo: Krista Kennell)Will she? Will she really? “She,” of course, is Oprah Winfrey. And after her thunderous speech at the Golden Globes last week, she’s become the latest California-based celebrity to be touted for high political office.
FIELD POLL: There has been a sizeable decline in President Barack Obama’s job approval rating among California voters over the last few months. A statewide Field Poll completed last week found that almost as many Californians now disapprove of the job the President is doing (43%) as approve (45%). This reading is the poorest appraisal of the job performance that Obama has received of his presidency.