Hoping That Left Is Right

I. Gavin Newsom is the sort of politician who leaves an impression. There's his prodigious résumé—at 41, he has started a multimillion-dollar wine business, served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and won election, twice, to serve as that city's mayor. There's his colorful personal life—after divorcing a knockout TV anchorwoman, he had an affair with his campaign manager's wife, an affair Newsom admitted to before then marrying a 34-year-old actress. Then there's his striking appearance—white teeth, long limbs and that hair, big and brown and slicked back on the sides. In spite of being straight, white, rich and male, he's managed to make himself the center of San Franciscopolitics for the past five years. Not the sort of man you forget. But ask average Californians what they remember about Newsom at the moment, and they're likely to offer six words: "whether you like it or not." That's what Newsom said about gay marriage—it was coming to California, and America, whether you like it or not. He said it in a speech, shortly after the California Supreme Court extended marriage rights to gays and lesbians. But his words were captured for posterity in an ad for Proposition 8, the ballot initiative seeking to reverse that decision. The ad begins with footage of a gloating Newsom grinning widely and gesturing broadly as he exclaims "the door's wide open, it's going to happen, whether you like it or not." It then lists a litany of coming evils: "people sued over personal beliefs, churches losing their tax-exempt status, gay marriage taught in public schools." It ends back with the smirking mayor: "whether you like it or not." Airing across the state, the ad was viewed as among the most effective in support of the ban. In November, Prop 8 passed, new gay marriages were prohibited in California, and the mayor of San Francisco was immortalized as the face of the radical gay agenda in the state.

How did Newsom let this happen to himself? The question has puzzled many in the Democratic Party. In 2003, when he was elected the youngest mayor of San Francisco in a century, party leaders embraced him as a rising star, headed for a bright national career. But then he seemed to go crazy. In 2004, before the state's high court had ruled, he allowed city hall to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, an act of civil disobedience that would make him a national celebrity. In 2008, he vocally and passionately opposed Prop 8, even after the "like it or not" ad made him a sideshow act in the debate. In an era when Democrats have concluded that they lose elections talking about God, guns or gays, Newsom has made gay civil rights his signature issue, a matter of principle for which he would sacrifice his career. Once viewed as a young man in a hurry, Newsom has become a joke to Democratic insiders, a man whose bright national future ended before it began.

But Newsom hasn't gotten any less ambitious. In the next six months, he is widely expected to announce a run for governor of California, replacing the term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2011. His advisers say his high visibility on gay marriage will be an asset in a Democratic primary where a large majority of voters opposed Proposition 8. Should he win his party's nomination, Newsom claims his stance on the issue will appeal even to voters who disagree with him. "They'll know that what most politicians claim, I actually do," Newsom tells NEWSWEEK. "I act on my principles, whether they're popular or not." He is a young-enough man to look at demographic data showing young voters are more likely to support gay marriage than their parents and grandparents, to envision a moment when his position on the issue is neither an asset nor a liability. He can imagine a moment when gay marriage is not an issue at all.

He's not the only one. In the past decade, most Democrats with national ambitions have taken a tortuously contorted position on gay rights—for civil unions, for full and equal rights, but opposed to "changing the definition of marriage." The position has reflected the conventional wisdom that while voters might support tolerance of gays, something about the word "marriage" makes them queasy. Quietly, however, a generation of younger Democrats from liberal urban areas has rejected this thinking. Newsom, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and New York Gov. David Paterson (and Eliot Spitzer before him) have decided to skip the verbal acrobatics and support gay marriage outright. In her quest to be appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's New York Senate seat, Caroline Kennedy has offered few specific positions on issues. One notable exception: the 51-year-old Democrat supports gay marriage, full stop.

When it comes to reading the mood of the country, urban liberals have a far from perfect record. As the defeat of Proposition 8 in blue California demonstrated, there are still plenty of moderate voters who do not share in the belief that gay marriage is inevitable in this country. As he ventures outside San Francisco in the next year, Newsom will learn just how much of an appetite exists for progressive activism in California, a bellwether for the country as a whole, on social issues like marriage and on concerns like health care, where Newsom envisions an activist role for the state. In the year after Barack Obama's historic victory, California may be the first and best place to see just how much change American voters are really ready to take.

Newsom's time as mayor has prepared him for a dramatic fight. Earlier this month he escorted a NEWSWEEK reporter down Market Street, near city hall. Most everyone recognized him—and had something to say. Some were fawning. "I just have to ask you for a picture," said one woman, " 'cause you're the sexiest mayor I've ever seen." Newsom smiled for the camera and demurred: "It's all relative when you're talking about mayors." Others were less fawning. "F––– you, Gavin," a man shouted across a busy intersection. "Get out of my life." Everyone thought they could talk to the mayor as if they knew him, some too well. "Keep getting the p–––y, Gavin," shouted one admiring citizen.