I’d almost phased out of the politics of California when a couple of items popped up on the radar screen.
A day or so ago, Eric Jaye, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s long-time friend and campaign strategist, resigned, ostensibly because of a difference of opinion over how to run Newsom’s campaign for governor of California.
Jaye is a proponent of the Obama approach to 21st Century politics: rouse the Twitter and Facebook crowds and solicit small campaign donations from millions of young voters. Newsom is 40 years old, and Jaye figured he’d relate more effectively to the young crowd than to the oldsters, who probably will identify with Newsom’s strongest opponent in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, 71 year old Jerry Brown.
Somewhere along the line however, Newsom either decided on his own or was convinced by others to revert to a traditional money raising approach, personally hit the phones and call the big donors.
Some analysts theorize that Newsom is distinctly uncomfortable with the Obama strategy because it also calls for personal contact with a lot of young people who are prone to ask potentially embarrassing questions. Newsom, it is thought by some, is more comfortable talking to the big money men, with whom he more closely identifies.
Be that as it may, Newsom replaced Jaye with Garry South, an old-line campaign strategist who favors not only phone contact with the big boys but also a scorched earth policy toward one’s opponent. Thus, with South in charge, we will probably notice an increase in personal attacks against Jerry Brown from the Newsom Camp.
This raises the specter of personal attacks in return from Jerry Brown’s folks, and hoo boy, does Newsom have a lot to be personally attacked about. In the interior of California, the voting population is very conservative. They do nor like Newsom’s stand and actions on gay marriage at all. No siree. Not one bit. And those conservative inlanders, along with an overwhelming Black vote, managed to kill gay marriage in California, at least for the time being.
But gay marriage isn’t the only divisive issue on Newsom’s record. On February 1, 2007, all hell broke loose when the Fog City Journal (some think the Chronicle broke the story) revealed that Newsom had had an affair with the wife of his then campaign manager and best friend.
The news erupted with the force of a couple of A-Bombs and the shock wave quickly circled the globe. Newspapers far and wide and blogs galore were totally consumed with the news to the virtual exclusion of all else. Even Newsom’s now-wife got in the act when she called Newsom’s inamorato “the culprit” and blamed the whole mess on her.
Newsom apologized with a pithy “Everything you’ve heard is true,” and then every one of the principals in the event clamed up tighter than a drum, and to this day, very little is known of the affair. Most of the information floating around is speculation.
Now here’s the kicker. Articles about Newsom have recently appeared in the New York Times and Fast Company Magazine. In both, Newsom addressed the affair, saying among other things that “it wasn’t true that everything you heard was true,” thus casting himself as a liar from the git-go. He went on to say, “There a story that hasn’t been told. Things were more benign than they appeared in print.”
Okay, so Newsom is an admitted liar and all of the facts of the matter haven’t come to light. How does the Greatest Story Never Told factor into Newsom’s new campaign strategy?
Here’s the chain of logic:
· Newsom’s campaign is in trouble
· He fires new-age (almost) campaign manager, Eric Jaye.
· He hires old-age campaign manager Garry South, noted for his scorched earth tactics.
· The new manager is expected to unleash personal attacks against Newsom’s main opponent, Jerry Brown.
· Jerry’s camp is expected to retaliate.
· The darkest blot on Newsom’s record and a likely subject of attacks from the Brown group is Newsom’s affair with his then-campaign manager and best friend’s wife.
· To dampen the effects of the expected attacks, Newsom initiates a preemptive strike, calling the affair and its aftermath benign and intimating that the real story has yet to be revealed.
· In other words, “Ain’t no big t’ing, Brah.”
· Mission accomplished.
However, the Newsom camp may be treading on thin ice by permitting Gavin to put forth the possibility of more to come. Hidden among all of the ambiguous statements is the clear intimation that any and all information released by el Gavo will cast him in the role of Saint and “the woman” as the siren who lured him onto the shoals of sin. Here are some possible scenarios:
Newsom’s version of the untold story will place him in the most favorable light. All or most of the blame will fall on the woman. After all, she is an admitted alcoholic and drug user (although the latter has never been officially verified), and it’s easy to envision this poor drunken woman pestering Newsom until he reluctantly succumbed.
There were only one or two encounters, the story may go, and poor Gavie was so distraught over his betrayal of his best friend that he quickly and sternly told his partner in sex that there would be no more, whereas she had a nervous breakdown or something and checked into rehab.
Later, at some point in the unfolding story, the three of them sat down together and discussed the matter like adults, whereas they all agreed that it was no big deal, just a benign, one-time aberration. Then, they shook hands and went their separate ways.
This or something similar may well be Gavie’s story, but it won’t work. While he might concoct some sort of preemptive cover story to defuse the personal attacks almost sure to come from the Brown side, he runs the risk of opening up a can of worms.
So far, his once-campaign manager and wife have remained resolutely silent. If Newsom opens up, they may do the same. If that happens, everything will plop out in one large plop. And if my guess is right, it may be a very messy plop indeed and likely spell the end of Newsie’s political career.
I could be off base in my analysis. I’ve been wrong before. Other explanations for Gavin’s enigmatic statements are well within the realm of plausibility. One comes to mind.
Quite some time ago, the media was rife with reports of a book in the works about the matter by the woman. The story faded, but if the book is near completion, and if Gavo’s camp is aware of its status, Gavo’s statements could be a preliminary move to counter inflammatory information that the book might include. I doubt this scenario, but anything is possible in San Francisco.
If I were one of Gav’s handler’s, my advice would be simple. STFU. Shut your damned mouth. Let sleeping dogs lie. Everytime this story is about dead, someone, usually the Chronicle, runs something, complete with names.
Now, Gav wants to jump on the band wagon. Enough damage has been done, a family destroyed and a child’s future altered irrevocably. Let the others get on with their lives, Gavster. I repeat, STFU.
Okay, political junkies, keep your eyes out and your ears to the ground. Things happen fast in California.