Time to Do the Honorable Thing, Joe

It’s been a good run, pretty much a Tom Brady career, Joe, but it’s time to hang up the helmet and move on. Thirty-six years in the Senate, two terms as Vice-President and one term as President of the United States. What you don’t want to do, is lose an election to Donald Trump and slink back to the locker-room with your head down.

There is an honorable solution and someone to take over

The honorable solution is an open Democratic Convention and the someone to take over is Gavin Newsom. Kamala Harris won’t cut it. She’s not broadly popular and certainly not the one to be the first woman president. Polls say the only woman to beat Trump is Michelle Obama and there’s no way in god’s earth she would run.

The Democratic Convention will be held in Chicago from August 19-22, when the Party Platform will be presented, banners will fly, and the presumptive nominee will give a speech. That’s a bit late in the game for a cat-fight, so my game plan would be for Joe to stand down in favor of Newsom right now, so the buildup to August is a crescendo rather than a last minute choice. Gavin can introduce his choice for vice-president.

Why Newsom?

He’s young, good looking, and a rock-solid candidate with inspiring credentials. A successful businessman as well as a politician, Newsom was elected mayor of San Francisco in 2003 and reelected in 2007.

Elected Lieutenant Governor of California in 2010, he hosted The Gavin Newsom Show from 2012 to 2013. He also wrote a 2013 book, titled Citizenville, which focused on using digital tools for democratic change. Reelected in 2014. Newsom became governor of California in 2018. That’s no small deal, California is the 5th largest economy in the world for the seventh consecutive year, with a nominal GDP of nearly $3.9 trillion in 2023 and a growth rate of 6.1% since the year prior.

More to the point, he can hold his own with the Donald

Newsom is not without controversy. He got caught out in an embarrassing circumstance during the Covid epidemic and survived a recall election to remain governor and be reelected the following year. He’s quick on his feet and his political instincts lie with the common citizens in America.

His mother, Tessa Newsom, worked three jobs to support Gavin and his sister, who recalled Christmases when their mother told them they would not receive any gifts. Tessa opened their home to foster children, instilling in Newsom the importance of public service. He worked several jobs in high school to help support his family.

Remembering those difficult times later, as Mayor of San Francisco, he implemented Care Not Cash, an initiative he had sponsored as a supervisor. As part of that initiative, 5,000 more homeless people were given permanent shelter in the city. About 2,000 people had been placed into permanent housing by 2007. Other programs he initiated to end chronic homelessness included the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team and Project Homeless Connect, which placed 2,000 homeless people into permanent housing and provided 5,000 additional affordable rental units in the city.

He won some battles and lost others

Supporting a failed measure in 2012 that sought to end capital punishment in California, he claimed the initiative would save California millions of dollars, citing statistics that California had spent $5 billion since 1978 to execute just 13 people.

Four years later, he supported Proposition 62, which would also have repealed the death penalty in California. He argued that the proposition would get rid of a system "that is administered with troubling racial disparities" and said that the death penalty was fundamentally immoral and did not deter crime. The proposition failed.

And, finally

(Wikipedia) Many journalists and political analysts have mentioned Newsom as a presidential hopeful. According to a June 2023 poll by NewsNation, 22% of California voters wanted Newsom to enter the 2024 presidential election. In May 2023, Arnold Schwarzenegger said it was a "no-brainer" that Newsom would someday run for president.

After his 2022 reelection as Governor, he informed White House staff that he would not challenge President Biden in the Democratic primaries. He endorsed Biden's reelection campaign on April 25, 2023.

But times change, and so do circumstances and promises made…