Saturday, November 10, 2007
"The name's Newsom...Gavin Newsom"
By Timothy Henry
I think I have a crush on Gavin Newsom.
Well…not really. I mean, maybe I should explain here that I am a heterosexual male (and a liberal)– and even still, the now second term mayor of San Francisco has something about him. Je ne sais quoi – I don’t know what to call it. It is charisma, charm, confidence, elocution . . . and . . . what?
Gavin Newsom San Francisco State’s Knuth hall campus on October 29th, in a sparsely attended and poorly advertised rally hosted by the College Democrats (were these to be metaphors for poor voter turnout?). Newsom, sported his token attire: hair, a heavily gelled and perfectly sculpted helmet; shirt, absent of a tie, and unbutton two-fold, and the whole ensemble framed by a black blazer and black slacks.
“Is he wearing a tuxedo,” a fellow reporter asked, as our journalistic posse of three trotted into the last twenty minutes of the event. Newsom’s ensemble did resemble worn formal-wear, and you had to wonder if Newsom was coming from some fancy, high-powered event, like James Bond after a long night of fighting spies, drinking dry martinis, and wooing exotic women.
Someone who identified them-self as a “driver” asked Newsom a transportation question, to which the mayor responded, “. . . That lays out a Transit Effectiveness Plan – TEP.”
Oh, you had me at TEP Gavin (or Gav’s, as I like to call him).
Indeed, what a ring acronyms and statistics have. Newsom then spouted of percentage, to the decimal. These are the basic tools of a good politician, not unique to Newsom, but certainly he uses this tool with great skill. Clearly one has weight, authority, and legitimacy if they have stats (to the freaking decimal) at their fingertips.
Newsom continued: “Integrative Traffic Management System ITMS 36.4 million dollars in repaving our street, three times more money . . .” Oh, yes, YES! Don’t stop, Gav’s.
Cecilia M. Vega of the San Francisco Chronicle attended Newsom’s State of the City earlier in the day, and wrote:
“In a presentation bordering on both a commercial for his administration and a college lecture series, Newsom carried a wireless microphone and walked around the stage and through the aisles in an auditorium at UCSF's Mission Bay campus, at one point briefly taking a seat next to an audience member.”
Yes, Newsom is a master politician. Bill (Slick Willy) Clinton had the Je ne sais quoi too , that smooth charm, that ability to seduce an audience. Indeed, my puppy-dog like crush is not limited to the young Gavin Newsom--it’s something that all good politicians can illicit (even Republicans).
Like Clinton, Newsom has been able to absorb scandal and emerge relatively unscathed, perhaps even politically stronger. “There was no mention of the sex scandal that rocked his administration earlier this year,” wrote Vega.
When thinking of slick politicians, I always refer to the beginning of Joe Klein’s “Primary Colors,” the brilliant semi-fictional journals of Bill Clinton’s emergence:
“. . . The handshake is the threshold act, the beginning of politics. I’ve seen him do it two million times now, but I couldn’t tell you how he does it, the right-handed part of it – the strength, quality, duration of it, the rudiments of the pressing flesh. I can, however, tell you a whole lot about what he does with his other hand . . . He is a genius with it. He might put it on your elbow, or up by your biceps: these are basic, reflexive moves. He is interested in you. He is honored to meet you. If he gets any higher up your shoulder – if he, say, drapes his left arm over your back, it is somehow less intimate, more casual. He’ll share a laugh or a secret then – a light secret, not a real one- flattering you with the illusion of conspiracy . . . He’ll flash that famous misty look of his. And he will mean it.”
I think I have a crush on Gavin Newsom.
Well…not really. I mean, maybe I should explain here that I am a heterosexual male (and a liberal)– and even still, the now second term mayor of San Francisco has something about him. Je ne sais quoi – I don’t know what to call it. It is charisma, charm, confidence, elocution . . . and . . . what?
Gavin Newsom San Francisco State’s Knuth hall campus on October 29th, in a sparsely attended and poorly advertised rally hosted by the College Democrats (were these to be metaphors for poor voter turnout?). Newsom, sported his token attire: hair, a heavily gelled and perfectly sculpted helmet; shirt, absent of a tie, and unbutton two-fold, and the whole ensemble framed by a black blazer and black slacks.
“Is he wearing a tuxedo,” a fellow reporter asked, as our journalistic posse of three trotted into the last twenty minutes of the event. Newsom’s ensemble did resemble worn formal-wear, and you had to wonder if Newsom was coming from some fancy, high-powered event, like James Bond after a long night of fighting spies, drinking dry martinis, and wooing exotic women.
Someone who identified them-self as a “driver” asked Newsom a transportation question, to which the mayor responded, “. . . That lays out a Transit Effectiveness Plan – TEP.”
Oh, you had me at TEP Gavin (or Gav’s, as I like to call him).
Indeed, what a ring acronyms and statistics have. Newsom then spouted of percentage, to the decimal. These are the basic tools of a good politician, not unique to Newsom, but certainly he uses this tool with great skill. Clearly one has weight, authority, and legitimacy if they have stats (to the freaking decimal) at their fingertips.
Newsom continued: “Integrative Traffic Management System ITMS 36.4 million dollars in repaving our street, three times more money . . .” Oh, yes, YES! Don’t stop, Gav’s.
Cecilia M. Vega of the San Francisco Chronicle attended Newsom’s State of the City earlier in the day, and wrote:
“In a presentation bordering on both a commercial for his administration and a college lecture series, Newsom carried a wireless microphone and walked around the stage and through the aisles in an auditorium at UCSF's Mission Bay campus, at one point briefly taking a seat next to an audience member.”
Yes, Newsom is a master politician. Bill (Slick Willy) Clinton had the Je ne sais quoi too , that smooth charm, that ability to seduce an audience. Indeed, my puppy-dog like crush is not limited to the young Gavin Newsom--it’s something that all good politicians can illicit (even Republicans).
Like Clinton, Newsom has been able to absorb scandal and emerge relatively unscathed, perhaps even politically stronger. “There was no mention of the sex scandal that rocked his administration earlier this year,” wrote Vega.
When thinking of slick politicians, I always refer to the beginning of Joe Klein’s “Primary Colors,” the brilliant semi-fictional journals of Bill Clinton’s emergence:
“. . . The handshake is the threshold act, the beginning of politics. I’ve seen him do it two million times now, but I couldn’t tell you how he does it, the right-handed part of it – the strength, quality, duration of it, the rudiments of the pressing flesh. I can, however, tell you a whole lot about what he does with his other hand . . . He is a genius with it. He might put it on your elbow, or up by your biceps: these are basic, reflexive moves. He is interested in you. He is honored to meet you. If he gets any higher up your shoulder – if he, say, drapes his left arm over your back, it is somehow less intimate, more casual. He’ll share a laugh or a secret then – a light secret, not a real one- flattering you with the illusion of conspiracy . . . He’ll flash that famous misty look of his. And he will mean it.”
# posted by [X]press Staff @ 8:07 AM 