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Why does Gavin Newsom ramble?

27 0
07.03.2026

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Why does Gavin Newsom ramble?

Politicians ramble because often, the game rewards it. 

Rambling can be smart evasion: Say too little and you’re perceived as evasive; say too much and the question disappears in a cloud of words.

Problem is, the rest of us get fairy dust in lieu of answers to real-world issues. 

Pressed for an answer or comment, he’ll pivot to a safer topic, bury the hot potato under stats and stories, or loop through abstract ideals until the interviewer loses the will to live. Classic moves — a real phony.

The latest example? The gov’s appearance on Adam Friedland’s podcast the other day. The host asked the most basic question imaginable: “Vote for you (Newsom) and you get what?”

Any normal candidate would rattle off three priorities and call it a day. Newsom, however, treated it like an invitation to deliver the Sermon on the Mount by way of a community-college philosophy seminar.

He declared himself a “Sargent Shriver Democrat,” channeled the “spirit of the ’60s,” then casually name-dropped Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela into his personal “why.” 

Friedland’s flat “What??” was the only honest response possible. Millions who watched the clip later agreed: Newsom is bizarre.

The man sounded like he was auditioning to be the next civil-rights emoji, not explaining why anyone should vote for him.

In too many respects, Newsom offers a masterclass in avoidance. Once he was the golden boy of West Coast liberalism: telegenic, articulate, effortlessly smooth and oh that hair!

Yet he’s spent the last couple of years morphing into a walking advertisement for verbal........

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