Hot Take
By Mariel Garza
What the ... what? Why are these two city boys standing in a Montana stream in, are those slacks and button-up shirts? That was my initial reaction to a odd clip from an interview between CNN’s Jake Tapper and Gov. Gavin Newsom released Monday. (Subsequent photos revealed that Newsom was actually wearing long shorts.)
It gets weirder: While the two men futz about with fly-fishing rods, they banter lightly about politics in a manner that suggests these are just two old friends shooting the breeze, sharing honest observations about life – and definitely not conducting a carefully planned interview with an attendant camera crew.
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Then there’s the biggest headscratcher of all: Tapper starts listing potential California Democrats running in 2028. After he mentions former Vice President Kamala Harris, Newsom pipes up, “I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see.” Tapper responds, “ I know she’s called around,” clearly trying to draw Newsom out.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t run if she ran,” Newsom said, adding later, “I wouldn’t do that to her.”
I don’t know if this was a calculated move from a savvy politician who has inside knowledge of Harris’ plans and knows that an admission will play well to her supporters, or just an honest acknowledgment that there’s no path for more than one moderate California Democrat in the next presidential primary.
In any case, it seems Newsom is telegraphing that, one way or the other, the two political frenemies who have managed to stay out of each other's way on their parallel career tracks will do so again in 2028.
Mariel Garza
Readers Respond: Losing another editorial board
Former Sacramento Bee columnist Robin Epley wrote about her wrenching experience being laid off last week along with every other member of the newspaper’s nearly 170-year-old editorial board. Her piece sparked discussion on the state of opinion journalism in California and the ownership of newspapers by ruthlessly profit-seeking firms. Some of the comments are below, lightly edited for space and style.
Robin Epley
Dan Morain, a former editorial page editor at The Bee, wrote on Substack:
I’ve seen more than one politico dance on the loss of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board. “Wacky left,” one called the board on his Facebook page today. As he does the bidding of Republican candidates, getting paid far more than real journalists, the laid-off editorial writers who care deeply about their calling may wonder how they will pay their rent.
The reality is that the demise of The Bee’s opinion page is a loss for all us who value our democracy. I read every one of The Bee’s endorsements in the primary. Although I didn’t agree with some choices, the board informed my decisions. Unlike consultants and so-called influencers, the hardworking journalists who made those calls reached their decisions based on honest reporting, not on who was paying them.
Jim Boren, former editor of McClatchy-owned Fresno Bee, wrote that the “hedge fund that owns McClatchy newspapers has forfeited the right to use the McClatchy name.” He penned a longer piece for his Substack page on the layoffs, which you can read here.
Lenny Goldberg posted about his experience pitching editorial boards:
As a policy wonk who worked on a lot of statewide initiatives, I always experienced editorial boards as the most substantive and probing on policy issues – not just The Bee and the L.A. Times (we miss you Mariel Garza!) but also the Bakersfield Californian, the L.A. Daily News, the Riverside Press-Enterprise and others. It was always valuable to have detailed policy discussions, and voters were strongly influenced by editorial positions.
Now, hopefully voters will ignore the positions of the hedge-fund and billionaire owners of our legacy newspapers. Robin Epley, your loss is a loss to all of us who care about good policy in our state.
Jason Christian took a walk down newspaper memory lane:
I hope someone will write a biography/eulogy of the McClatchy business. When I was a kid my parents told me The Bee had the best California coverage this side of the L.A. Times. I liked the green pages and the Sackamenna Kid (Herb Caen) and the other columnists, but otherwise called it the “San Francisco Chomicle.”
We subscribed to the Bee after we moved from Sac to the City – and to the Chomicle, so we could handle both pink and green newsprint.
Noted, With Comment
By Paul Thornton
He actually saved the redwoods: Dan Morain left the Los Angeles Times in 2009, but his byline appears in an obituary for Byron Sher, the cerebral former state senator who played a huge role in saving the old-grown redwoods at Headwaters Forest Reserve near Eureka. Sher died Saturday at age 98, and Morain delves further into the complex politicking behind the Headwaters forest battle in the late 1990s in a fascinating, history-rich piece at his Substack page.
About that editorial: Mariel Garza, executive editor of Golden State, talked with Madeleine Brand on KCRW’s “Press Play” about the L.A. Times “editorial board” breaking its nearly 18-month silence to oppose the Proposition 40 billionaire tax. You can listen to the interview here, right around the 14:45 mark.
Golden State staff
Numbers schmumbers: A 49% reduction in street homelessness sounds impressive – but is it really? Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman has made much of that drop last year in her City Council district to contrast with incumbent Karen Bass’ record. But at L.A. Reported, journalist Jon Regardie says that decline doesn’t show much – and it might not translate into success on homelessness as mayor.
Golden State oligarchs: California politics are dominated by wealthy interests and individuals – no surprise there! But this project, called “The California Oligarch Index,” identifies which businesses, interest groups and donors have sought outsized influence in elections, and exactly how much they’ve spent. It found that just 99 “oligarchs and allied organizations” have together spent $5.8 billion from 2005 to 2024 on state campaigns and lobbying.
The 20-something in charge on 9/11: Alex Padilla, now California’s senior U.S. senator, was 28 years old on Sept. 11, 2001. He was also the Los Angeles City Council president and – because then-Mayor James K. Hahn was out of town – acting mayor of L.A. At L.A. Material, Julia Wick recounts the Tuesday 25 years ago when the Pacoima native elected to the City Council at age 26 led the nation’s second-largest city during the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
What do you think? Golden State is a public forum. Send your responses for possible publication to forum@golden-state.org.
