Newsom v. de Leon and the Pre-Election Sucker Punch

Not that we enjoy division between those who have an ax to grind with truth, justice and the American way (that would be all the good guys in the gun movement), but sometimes we get a bit of tempered satisfaction in watching how they spin their “dissatisfaction” with each other.

Take Gavin Newsom and Kevin de Leon – each of them puffing out their liberal chests in their respective attempt to be the top anti-gun dog in the state.  While GOC thinks it’s more of a political exercise than anything remotely related to protecting Californians, their not-so-private-spat has been one of the more entertaining things to watch during this awful election cycle.

In the past few months, the barbs have been nasty – certainly not the norm because Democrats are far more competent than Republicans when it to comes to keeping the lid on dirty laundry.  Even though our Lt. Gov and the Senate pro Tem are bosom buds in their eagerness to disarm the law abiding, their personal ambition is another story – they are even more zealous about elevating themselves to the top of the statewide politically powerful food chain.

The Senator has been trying for years to be the anti-gun luminary, so when Newsom had the nerve to launch his initiative drive last year, de Leon openly challenged the move as “risky” and that it would “derail” the gun control issue altogether.

This opened up another kind of “launch” – with a Newsom campaign spokesman issuing blistering criticism, and calling de Leon’s comments “sickeningly cynical.”

“This last-minute, anti-democratic, poison pill sneak attack makes you wonder if the pro Tem cares about himself more than he cares about doing the right thing,” declared Newsom spokesman Dan Newman.

But there’s more:

“Is he someone who truly respects the will of the voters and wants to reduce gun violence or is he merely a self-serving cynic completely consumed with petty personal grudges?”

These two may need counseling.

The pro Tem decided to pile on, saying,

“Any individuals who want to further their own political interests, that’s their own business. But we have taken care of business and as far as I am concerned any ballot measure in the fall is irrelevant.”

Irrelevant. Well, at least GOC and de Leon can agree on that.

We doubt that they’ve gone to counseling, but someone may have temporarily knocked their heads together because de Leon ultimately decided to endorse Proposition 63 and the twosome were singing an election Kum-Ba-Yah for a least a couple of days.   De Leon supposedly wanted to “send a powerful and united message to the national Gun Lobby that California will not capitulate to political bullying or compromise the public safety.”

RIGHT.  Those scary Gun Lobby Bullies.  Who compromise public safety. OK then.

But wait.  In spite of de Leon’s acquiescence on the “irrelevant” Prop. 63, the Newsom people just couldn’t resist a final sucker punch, proclaiming to the LA Times:

“The gun violence crisis is too dire to worry about credit claiming and bandwagon-jumping, so even though some may accuse him of being a self-aggrandizing hypocrite, I’d simply like to thank KDL for admitting he was wrong (smack!) and enthusiastically following Newsom’s lead (ka-pow!). It’s certainly better late than never (zowie!) on such a critically important initiative, so if he spends the final week campaigning for Prop 63, I’m happy to forgive and forget that he obsessively tried to undermine it for the past year (double wham!).”

Mr. pro Tem…. can you reach that knife in your back?