CalBuzz has got the horserace covered and the latest poll shows Attorney General Jerry Brown leading SF Mayor Gavin Newsom 46-26. That leaves a lot of undecideds, and the mushiness is still unclear. That being said, Brown’s enormous name recognition and familiarity to older voters make for an excellent position at this point.
But it is early. In 2005 at this point, June 29, 2005 to be exact, one Phil Angelides was leading the Democratic Primary, which of course he did go on to win. On the other hand, that Field Poll (PDF) also had both Angelides and former State Controller Steve Westly defeating Arnold Schwarzenegger. We know how that went for Angelides, don’t we?
So while polls at this point do provide for interesting speculation, it is hard to put too much stock in them. They tell us what most of us would have known already: Brown has huge positive name ID and familiarity with older voters, and Newsom is connecting with younger voters while trying to make up the ID gap.
The poll simply did not show that. It showed Newsom only getting just over a third of the under 40 vote in a two way race, with only 47% thinking he has the skills to be governor and only 41% agreeing with him on the issues. That isn’t connecting unless you are grading on a curve for a Republican.
Which shouldn’t surprise anyone, young voters have always seen through Newsom (he was slaughtered 2:1 among young voters in his only race). The fact that a demographic Newsom does poorer with the more people see of him is the ray of sunshine isn’t a sign he is connecting, it is a sign of total weakness overall.
But I can see why Garry South is hyping the youth vote angle even though it doesn’t exist, when you are in a position of needing to capture 85% of the undecided vote to get to 50 you might as well just make things up. It would be nice to see South getting called out by the reality based community for such nonsense.
There’s still plenty of time for an adventurous type to get in the race. Sadly it would more likely be some retread, but it sure would be cool to have more choices and a real campaign, instead of what we’ve got now (1 declared 1 maybe).
Newsom….not so much.
The only chance for Newsom is if Gordon Getty decides to go out and buy votes. It will not take a genius for someone from brown’s staff to get the newsom prop 8 video to scare the dems into voting for someone in the center on the off chance anyone is stupid enough to think a republican can win.
Brown’s name reco is enough to win a primary. The only challenge was from antonio – the racial therapeutic types and the latinos would have been a nice base to grow on. Newsom’s base is only the most insipid people who like guys with slicked back hair and wandering penises.
Did Brown finally actually announce his candidacy for governor, cause the last fund raising email I got from him asked me to donate to which ever campaign he decides on based on how much money he raises before he decides which campaign he’s going to run.
To all you ‘twitterlings’ who have bought into the slick PR campaign being mounted by Newsom and his handlers, I suggest you look deeper. A good place to start would be the article “The Two Newsoms” by Steve Jones at SF Bay Guardian. The last thing we need is a second tier Schwarzenneger.
Dont get fooled again.
Patrick Monk.RN. Noe Valley.SF.