SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Standing alone in center field of an empty Dodger Stadium, California Gov. Gavin Newsom cast himself as a bold if imperfect leader and his state as on the cusp of a new day.
Officially it was the annual State of the State address but the Tuesday night speech also served as the unofficial campaign kickoff for the first-term Democrat, who almost certainly will face a recall election later this year that is fueled by criticism of this handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Newsom shed his typical long-windedness and sometimes hard-to-understand jargon for a crisp, 28-minute speech that he scheduled in the evening in Los Angeles to try to maximize viewership. He’s prone to heavy use of numbers and statistics, but this time stayed above the surface, talking about California’s future in broad, optimistic terms.
The governor led all framing and tweaking and finalized the speech himself,” while the writing team was led by Jason Elliott, a senior counselor to Newsom…
