Newsom’s $19 Million Ad Campaign Can’t Polish California’s Image

It’s going to take a lot more than a $19 million advertising blitz to make people forget about California’s problems.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who is known to love “big, hairy, audacious goals,” recently hired the communications powerhouse Edelman to rehab the Golden State’s image, which, in Newsom’s telling, has been marred by right-wing conspiracy theories.

“But some look at this state and try to tear down our progress,” reads the request for proposal. “They attack our values and caricature our culture. They distort the data to diminish our accomplishments.”

The RFP makes a good point. People don’t really talk enough about Newsom’s accomplishments, but that’s more a reflection of the fact that there’s very little to say. Instead, a lot of attention is paid to California’s failing public school system, floundering economy, high cost of living, intractable homelessness, high unemployment, and housing crisis, as well as the persistent threat of drought and blackouts.

But hey, the weather is great!

The irony is that Newsom has had seven years to fix a problem. Any problem. He could have saved $19 million if he had.

But he hasn’t.

Everything Newsom does, especially when it comes to his national reputation, must be viewed within the context of his presidential aspirations. This is no different. It’s not surprising that he wants help fighting against his perceived enemies who publish unflattering things about California, a list that must include the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and national academic testing organizations, and any blog that compares tax rates throughout the states.

Newsom could add to that list liberal luminary Ezra Klein, who not too long ago wrote in the New York Times that “California Is Making Liberals Squirm.”

“If progressivism can’t work there, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?” Klein asked.

That was in 2021. Has anything changed?

Nothing seems different to me. The same must be true for Newsom, which is why he changes the subject and brags about obscure things that have nothing to do with him, like the size of California’s economy, the number of Nobel laureates in the state, and California being “the most diverse state in the . . . world’s most diverse democracy” (which also does not appear to be true).

Occasionally, Newsom gets desperate and highlights tortured studies that show California actually has a really low tax burden (with the caveat that you have to ignore all the ways the tax burden is exceptionally high). It’s like saying the Sacramento Kings were undefeated this year if you exclude all the losses.

Newsom is right that California has a large economy, which has been true for a long time. Ronald Reagan used to brag about it when he was governor. But what good is a large economy if few people get to experience the benefits?

As Pacific Research Institute experts recently found, California’s job growth underperforms the nation’s, and key sectors like tech, finance, and manufacturing are shrinking. On top of that, the oppressive cost of living means Californians have 35 percent less disposable income than the national median despite high average incomes.

Newsom’s RFP seeks to promote the state as an “unmatched tourism destination,” which is not something anyone debates. The scenery and parks are amazing here. I live in the Sierra foothills, and I love my community, my church, my job, and my family. But I must balance all that with needing the government’s permission to burn a fire in my fireplace or cut down a dead oak in my backyard.

Newsom often takes credit for the success of Tesla and Elon Musk. “There was no Tesla without California's regulatory bodies, and regulation,” he says, which is a polite, bureaucratic way of saying California took money from working-class people and gave it to rich people so they could buy electric vehicles. A reverse Robin Hood.

Another study by PRI found that California’s aggressive environmental policies will actually cost each household around $20,000. It’s one of the many things driving up the cost of living on even the poorest of residents.

The RFP reads: “California has never been about perfection. It’s about persistence. The courage of our convictions and the strength to embody them. That’s the California Way.”

It’s true. California is persistent, especially when it comes to spending other people’s money. That really has become the California Way.

It’s impossible to list the myriad ways California’s leadership hurts Californians -- such an accounting would be too vast. At the same time, the list of successes under Newsom is remarkably short.

Edelman might have underestimated the challenge. It’s going to take a lot more than $19 million to polish California’s once-golden reputation.