but my late night thought last night was: how much does this crisis bump up the timeline on Gavin Newsom’s inevitable presidential run?

or was he always gonna do it in 2024/28 (I'm not convinced Biden is going to definitely lose, I'm not sure what kind of certainty there can be in the world right now)

this pandemic has been like, a spotlight on governors (or the crappy WI legislature overruling the governor)

mmmm

Now he gets to add "first governor to order stay at home" to his resumé of stuff

And it looks like that might have saved a lot of lives

You're not wrong about that

gov. cuomo also definitely pushed forward his governor -> president timeline, too

Gavin Newsom has fascinated me for a long time because he's like, the platonic ideal of a slick politician type, aesthetic-wise

he's very wine-cavey

i mean at least california has a lot of wine and/or caves

plenty to go around

god cuomo is just terrible tho

NO HE IS

i'm just saying

but he always gets in front of everyone else on issues, you might remember him as "the mayor of san francisco who just started marrying same sex couples"

yeah, Cuomo has definitely upped his profile

yeah, newsom's a solid 10

it already has a huge section on his wiki

is he like Pete editing his own wiki

could be half a dozen of that, six of there being a lot of techbros in california who would edit the wiki

Yeah, I'm sure

Another good thing about Gavin Newsom is that he's very anti publicly funded stadiums

good fuck public stadiums

Newsom and Garcetti have handled this really well.

It’s not anxiety inducing to listen/watch their daily updates.

He's one of the reasons the 49ers aren't in San Francisco proper, and also campaigned against Santa Clara giving them public funds (which they did anyway because the south bay is desperate for relevance)

and yes, fuck public stadiums

yeah Newsom and Garcetti have been handling a lot of this well. I think we'll see both of them stepping up in politics for sure.

yeah, maybe Garcetti will be able to break the stranglehold San Francisco has on California state politics

you mean this isn't going to end with cali becoming it's own nation?

#freecascadia

also, divide california up into six smaller states

but yeah, just wondering, politics has become so nationalized but now we're seeing a crisis put more local leadership in the spotlight

partly because /gestures at national leadership, but I don't want to talk about them

at the same time local media has been hit hard

honestly, depending on the results of this election, either cascadia 2020 or cascadia 2024. the us maintaining influence is bullshit if this is what's gonna happen, let the west coast do its own thing.

godddd if jb pritzker runs

-_-

I think he's done a good job with the pandemic!

but he absolutely pulled a trump in the primaries and I'm still Extremely Salty about that

Yeahhhhh

wait, what did he do?

please plurk, tell me about your governors

how have your local leaders handled the pandemic? do you trust them? I'd like to be educated.

pritzger knows he's got a shady past

he'd never make it in the federal level

please don't abandon us, california

my lieutenant governor bragged to tucker carlson about how ready he is to die to preserve our economic nightmare

hmmm, does that make you feel safer?

super not!

yeah I was honestly pleased that when LA was sent broken respirators from the fed government, Newsom was like "well these are broken and I'm going to tell everyone, but I'm also going to get a CA company to fix them for us ASAP so we can use them"

and Garcetti just straight up texted everyone on the LA emergency text list that if non-essential companies refuse to close, he'd have LADWP cut off their water and power to force them. he's not taking any shit rn.

meanwhile Trump's pushing a drug that only has anecdotal proof of helping because he has stock in the company that makes it and he sent us those broken respirators in the first place so...

my governor is kickin' butt

I have Andy Beshear and he's doing a great job, takin no shit, etc

i appreciate how transparent she's been about the state's situation and her reasoning for decisions

also she's taking things very seriously, which i appreciate

kate brown loaned some of oregon's respirators to new york!

I came across an interesting story that I can't entirely verify, but also can't disbelieve, which was that the reasons the Patriots' plane was used to fly in masks from China to MA was because Gov Baker was so fed up and kept having his materials seized by the feds that he had to cook up a plan in collaboration with Kraft, the UN Chinese Ambassador

and the Alaska governor to get some PPE into the country without the feds being able to catch wind of it, or seize it for themselves

I dislike Baker, but I can't help but applaud the ingenuity even as I'm appalled it's necessary

it's true, baker managed to get the masks from a manufacturer in china but they needed a way to transport them so he called up the krafts for help

NJ's not doing too badly, really, and the state twitterfeed remains amazing as always

he also remembered to thank wawa today which is the most important thing

Pritzker has off-shore tax havens "for charity"

and spent something like $50 mil of his own cash in the primaries

tbf the il primaries are more competitive

it's true

he knows he's on thin ice so he's been sticking to his actually good platform

although that was a pretty lackluster bunch (I voted for Daniel Biss and I was still mildly unsure)

but really anyone would've been able to beat rauner lbr

weren't there some shady-ass convos between Pritzker and Blago too?

I wanted pawar but he dropped out early, idr who I even voted for lmao

last I heard from family in IA, Reynolds is still refusing a shelter in place order

they're not pleased

I wanted Kennedy but literally, nOT FUCKING RAUNER was my primary consideration

^ that

and like, Pritzker is at least showing that he understands basic managment skills

I cna be like, pls not tax evasion but at least you are not inept, you stuck to your platform and appear to not be a grifter and by IL standards that makes you fucking amazing

A+ carry on

I'm about pritzker tbh but also, he told the feds to get their shit together re: O'Hare so I can't be too mad

yes, that exactly

also, he told hospitals that if they refused to take dept of corrections people he'd publically name and shame them

and for that, I am willing to give him a non ironic gold star

shut up, he did??

he did

that whole speech was great lemme get a link

thank you! I've been avoiding a lot of news for my own sanity, so I didn't hear about this

Read Pritzker’s Full Statement Announcing Illinois S... here you go

thank you!

and yeah I completely understand avoiding the news; I have a once-a-day thirty-minute limit

yeah I just follow a few activists on twitter and watch clips of the late show before bed

I do news at like 10:30 am so it's not first thing and it's not last thing

just so I manage whatever rage or anxiety happens >.>;

Garcetti is taking 0 shit from anyone.

I appreciate how transparent they seem to be right now too.

Democratic And GOP Governors Enacted Stay-At-Home Or...

....how much is DeWine bending the curve there

Because he went hard

(And credit where it's due, because mad respect for almost all of his actions, and super mad respect for his DoPH and for hiring her as his expert in the first place)

Bending the curve as far as "average days it took R governors to do the thing" I mean

....and also R governors in blue states like VT NH MD MA >_>

Because I feel like....that's, um, something that is obscured heavily by that top line number, ahem

The East Coast, Always in the Spotlight, Owes a Debt...

Oregon gets points from me b/c I got my state tax return yesterday and there was extra money b/c budget surplus which is... quite helpful rn.

Oregon giving me the gift of FFVII remake.

very nice of them

nice nice nice

anyway in another "east coast bias is real"

i feel very lucky to live on the west coast now honestly

yeah another cool west coast thing: vote by mail

good rn especially, but there's a whole debate on it right now

hasn't sunk oregon yet?

(I realize Oregon has this policy because it is extremely white)

California, Oregon & Washington Announce Western Sta...

new nation tears itself apart debating whether to be called "I-5 Republic" or "The I-5 Republic"

The I-5 Republic has a nice ring to it

my friend pointed out that no one says the "I"

yeah it'd really be "The 5 Republic" vs "I-5 Republic" but it's hard to get the joke to land right

in truth because I-5 doesn't go through the Bay Area it would be vetoed