Matt Mahan, the San Jose mayor, is an ambitious politician. Only 42 years old—the same age as JFK when he ran for President--he’s telegenic and articulate, and could easily be a future California Governor or Senator. Mahan is not going to do anything stupid, like supporting a candidate who goes down to defeat. So when he endorses Loren Taylor for mayor of Oakland, it’s because the Democratic establishment has concluded that Taylor will win.
The latest poll reaches the same conclusion: Taylor beating Lee 45 percent to 40 percent. The Oakland race is a local example of the struggle currently going on in the Democratic Party between moderates and radicals. Lee is the out-of-touch radical, still impaled on her 1970s-era radical Black nonsense. Taylor is the modern moderate. Caught up in this same drama—melodrama?--is Gavin Newsom. Many have questioned why his first guests on his podcast were conservative Republicans. The conventional wisdom is that Newsom is laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run. By playing footsie with the likes of Charlie Kirk, Michael Savage and Steve Bannon, he’s trying to show the MAGA crowd that he’s not the woke monster Republicans say he is. The reaction inside his own Democratic Party has been one of shock, even hysteria—Lee accused him of being a racist when he refused to appoint her to the Senate to replace Dianne Feinstein, something Lee felt she was entitled to. But Newsom is unabashed. If he’s right—if his gambit pays off and he’s elected President in three years—then the adage will be proven true: He who laughs last laughs best.
It can’t be denied that Newsom is on to something. The center of gravity within the Democratic Party has clearly shifted. The woke obsession with race and defunding the police, which was so widespread three and four years ago, has faded away. In its place is a new, more centrist sentiment that resulted in Chesa Boudin’s recall, in Pamela Price’s recall, in Sheng Thao’s recall, and in other recalls and election results that prove, beyond a doubt, that liberal Democrats can retain their values while rejecting extremism. Yes, Democrats want their progressive values protected under the current Trump regime. But they’re not interested in fighting about pronouns or bathrooms. They have more important things on their mind.
Gavin Newsom is well aware of this. Progressives accuse him of selling out, but Newsom has never been a super-progressive wokester. Yes, he boldly married gay people twenty years ago, but he’s fundamentally his father’s son, a Roman Catholic who’s socially liberal but conservative in many respects. He’s always supported the cops. He’s always been tough on crime. He demands accountability in spending. I have no doubt he would publicly support Loren Taylor over Barbara Lee, if he felt he could (and I’ve shared that belief with him), but he doesn’t think a sitting governor should get involved in local politics. At the same time, he knows that Barbara Lee’s Democratic Party is not his own Democratic Party.
Loren Taylor’s Democratic Party isn’t Lee’s, either. Lee represents the past, the last gasp of a movement obsessed with race and income redistribution. Lee’s Democratic Party fundamentally believes that Americans are racists and that the responsibility of government is to tilt the table in favor of Black people in order to compensate for centuries of racism. Taylor, as a Black man, may share some of these beliefs. But to the extent I understand him, he does not believe that race is the most important issue in Oakland. He believes we need more business, more jobs, more middle-income housing. Barbara Lee believes in government programs. Loren Taylor believes in fewer. He knows that government programs cannot force people to behave morally—in other words, you can’t legislate morality. Taylor is willing to fund programs to some extent, but ultimately he knows that changing behavior starts in infanthood, with responsible parenting; and this is something the community needs to hear, over and over and over until they get it. Government can help around the edges, but the core of responsible citizenship is the individual himself.
Steve Heimoff