Letters: Newsom’s comfortable nest

Re “For Gavin Newsom, it’s lonely just below the top,” Column One, July 15

With Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom having no influence on Jerry Brown, clearly our governor does not subscribe to Abraham Lincoln’s “team of rivals” leadership style. So if Newsom feels he is powerless, I invite him to switch places with me.

I am a member of a neighborhood association and a board member of a neighborhood council. I lobby my local City Council member’s office and other departments regularly to try to improve the quality of life in my community.

Just as with Newsom, I get little response, but unlike him, I do not have a salary of $123,965 or a $1 million budget to pay my staff so I can be ready for TV appearances. I am a volunteer who is underemployed.

One must serve one’s community as a duty.

Daphne Brogdon

Los Angeles

If the Republicans had a perfect candidate in waiting such as Newsom, he would be hyped by their political machine 24/7. But this is so typical of the Democrats and their ability to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Brown ignores Newsom and the future of the party, and the rest of the name-brand Democrats and mainstream media are obsessed with Hillary Rodham Clinton finding the fountain of youth on her way to Social Security.

Alan Segal

San Diego

The article states that Newsom’s affair with the wife of his campaign manager while he was mayor of San Francisco almost killed his career.

The Times is wrong. Such selfish bad judgment did extinguish Newsom’s chances for a governorship or any other top leadership post. While he’s lucky that name recognition won him his current job, he is displaying more of his juvenile arrogance by complaining about it.

Newsom’s progressive ideas are commendable, but the taint of that affair won’t go away. It’s best for him to give up all aspirations for elective office and concentrate on doing good work in the private sector.

Dawna Kaufmann

Los Angeles

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