Ouch.
That’s all I could think of when I was sent this email from Garry South, the chief strategist of the Hahn for Lt. Governor campaign, who also happens to be a former advisor to the now defunct Newsom for Governor campaign. Newsom, as you may know, might actually run for LG after all, and the fact one of his former advisors is working for another candidate? Well one had to wonder if that was going to end in tears or not.
Today, the following communique was issued by Mr. South. Upon reading it, all I could think of was just how much of a knockdown dragout fight this race could be. Read on:
STATEMENT BY GARRY SOUTH
CHIEF STRATEGIST, JANICE HAHN FOR LT. GOVERNOR
FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR, GAVIN NEWSOM FOR GOVERNOR
I am surprised and perplexed that my friend and former client Mayor Gavin Newsom apparently has decided to jump into the lieutenant governor’s race at the last minute – especially against an already-announced candidate who would be the first woman lieutenant governor in California history.
In every one of several conversations we had about the job while he was running for governor, the Mayor expressed nothing but disinterest in and disdain for the office of lieutenant governor. In fact, he was derisively dismissive of Gray Davis’s decision to run for and serve as lieutenant governor prior to running for governor (“I’m not a Gray Davis,” he said). On a couple of occasions, he directed me to repudiate publicly in the strongest terms that he had any interest in ever running for lieutenant governor.
The Mayor himself told the Chronicle in October that rumors he may run for lieutenant governor were “absurd” and “a complete lie,” and angrily accused Jerry Brown of personally spreading false information to that effect. As recently as December, he himself said flatly “no” when asked directly on a San Francisco radio show whether he intended to run for lieutenant governor.
In addition, when he precipitously pulled out of the governor’s race in late October – against my advice – he said he couldn’t continue as a statewide candidate because he was a husband, a new father and the mayor of San Francisco. So far as I know, he’s still a husband, a new father and the mayor of San Francisco. So it’s pretty hard to see what’s changed over the last four months that would now allow him to run for another statewide office.
If the Mayor does run, it is his responsibility to explain why he now claims to want an elected office he summarily dismissed publicly numerous times over the last several months, and which just earlier this year he called “a largely ceremonial post” … “with no real authority and no real portfolio.”
I’ve got to wonder why Mayor Newsom would want to subject himself to a statewide race against some of his own people, who seem quite willing to take out the blowtorch and pliers and go to work on the Mayor over here. I sure as Hell wouldn’t want to go through that, and I can’t imagine why Newsom would either. Even if he won the primary, he’d come out of it with enough damage that it might make the LG in reach for the Republicans in November since everything’s kind of up in the air now.
Bring on the pain, Democrats!