(PJ Media) You gotta hand it to Gavin Newsom. He’s quite sure of himself, and the righteousness of his cause.
The Democratic governor of California has made a growing number of appeals to conservatives lately, along the lines of, “Hey, if you REALLY like freedom, you’d LOVE what we’ve done in The Golden State!”
Now, he’s running ads over the Independence Day weekend in Florida, accusing evil Republicans of banning speech in classrooms, banning books, and restricting voting rights:
The Newsom ad running in Florida invites a DeSantis rejoinder referencing two Californias: the one with homeless encampments on streets lined with poop and used needles, and the other where elites like Newsom violate lockdown to dine at the French Laundry. pic.twitter.com/ejWXyuuTJN
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 3, 2022
Newsom’s new ads in Florida follow his move to join Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he had joined former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform to call out “Republican lies.”
“I know we’re all on this platform in search for the truth,” Newsom said in a video post. “But the truth is I’ve not been able to find a simple explanation for the fact that we have a red state murder problem.”
Look, it’s a little early, but the campaign to replace Biden in 2024 has begun in earnest. Several potential Republican candidates have conveniently timed book tours this summer. Newsom’s stunts have a similar air, as PJ Media’s VodkaPundit wrote last week:
Democrats can’t nominate “Anyone But.” They have to nominate someone.
And right now, there are already two Democrats maneuvering for the early advantage to become the Not-Biden of choice.
The first is California Gov. Gavin Newsom, or as I like to think of him, the Prince of Hair.
Newsom is feeling pretty good these days, having won his recall election and his state being so flush with bailout bucks that he can send “inflation relief” checks to his fellox and syster Californians. Never mind that it won’t help; it will look good in the TV spots.
SPOILER: Using free money to fight inflation is like hiring a San Francisco homeless person to disinfect your operating room.
Speaking of which, Newsom himself got the “Newsom ’24” chatter going himself, surreptitiously: Why is California Governor Gavin Newsom’s campaign buying TV ads on Fox News in Florida? Move fuels 2024 speculation.
The ads will start airing July 4 on Fox News in Florida, SFGate reported. The airtime cost the Newsom campaign about $105,000, mediumbuying.com tweeted.
“Stay tuned,” Nathan Click, a spokesperson for Newsom’s re-election campaign, told SFGate.com when he was asked about the content of the ads.
I have a pretty good idea of what the ads will contain: A flattering portrait of Newsom (who isn’t at all running for president, he swears!) compared to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (who is a likely 2024 contender).
Newsom’s television buy in Florida reminded me of the classic scene in the 1980’s reboot of Dragnet between Dabney Coleman and Christopher Plummer for some reason:
Republican governors and legislators, and the originalist judges they’ve nominated, have produced an impressive string of victories since 2020. Emboldened by parents protesting the content of their children’s curriculum in their school districts, the opportunity to go on offense against woke corporations, and the growth of majorities in state legislatures, the GOP has embraced the culture wars at the local and state levels. Nowhere has this happened more frequently than in Florida under the no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle style of Governor Ron DeSantis.
At the national level, fewer and fewer people hold out any hope the Democrats can avoid a historic mid-term beatdown in November 2022. Inflation, high gas prices, a recession (or worse), and international instability have pushed the Misery Index into stratospheric levels, as PJ’s Gwendolyn Sims has reported. It’s no wonder, then, that Democrats have refocused their sights on 2024, despite having almost no bench of potential up-and-coming candidates to speak of.
But the Democrats are fighting back. In fact, they started in the Summer of Love during the 2020 George Floyd riots, as antifa thugs were shipped not just to the big cities, but to small towns all over America to protest. From tiny little towns in rural Oregon and Washington, to the deep red counties in the Florida panhandle, and everywhere in between, BLM protests popped up in unexpected areas.
