Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is

Luke Thompson. Luke is a Republican political consultant. He writes frequently for National Review

and co-hosts its constitutionally speaking podcast. Today we're going to discuss his

terrific essay, Native Sun, which chronicles California Governor Gavin Newsom's

rise to power in California and assesses his viability as a possible presidential candidate.

The essay appears in our recent special issue. Can California be golden again? So Luke,

thanks very much for joining us. Well, thanks for adding to me, Brian.

So Newsom, as you note, frequently plays up his humble roots in his second inaugural address

earlier this year. He described himself as a child of divorce and dyslexia, and he's claimed that his earliest

memories are of his parents fighting over money.

So, you know, this may be true, but it's certainly not as he document the whole story.

In fact, Newsom's father's family has been entrenched in San Francisco politics for generations and intertwined with

the city's wealthiest, most powerful families. So I wonder if you could give a brief overview of

the Newsom family's rise prominence in California politics and how its ties with San Francisco's

elite provided, as you put it in your essay, a launch pad for

Newsom's political career? Sure, happy to. I guess the short version is Newsom's great-grandfather

immigrated to California from Ireland. His grandfather got a job in Democratic machine politics

before the Second World War, and really was an important player during the Truman administration in dispensing patronage jobs.

That Newsom, No. 2, did two things that I think are really important for people to understand.

The first is, as the California machine got broken up by reforming liberals nationally Estes Keefeffer and within California by some local figures,

and the party began to move

...