Newsom on YouTube

Filed under: Same-Sex Marriage
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I've now edited the previous entry to add this link, but for anyone who read that entry before I updated it: Newsom's talk at Google is now available on YouTube. I'm very pleased that the people who post the talks managed to rush this through production in a much shorter time than usual.

I should have mentioned in the previous entry that the talk itself is only the first 18 minutes or so. After that, he does Q&A, much of which is about Prop 8 but some of which is about San Francisco politics. (Still worth watching if you're a Newsom fan or interested in SF politics, but not as essential as the main body of the talk.)

In case the Q&A portion is confusing, what happened is that we got to submit and vote on questions ahead of time (using an internal version of Google Moderator), and Newsom had a display where he could view the questions. It wasn't clear to us beforehand that he was there specifically to talk about Prop 8, so a bunch of the questions were about Muni and homelessness and such. Also, the plan was originally not to allow live spoken questions from the audience (which we didn't know beforehand), but fortunately Newsom turned out to be happy to take such questions.

I took a bunch of photos of him, but I suspect none of them came out. I found it interesting that after making a statement, he would occasionally pause for emphasis; in those pauses, he usually stood very still, often in a particularly appealing pose. Great dramatic profiles. But I kept getting the timing wrong in my photos, taking them just after he started moving again, and he was too far away for a flash.

One Response to “Newsom on YouTube”

  1. Jay Hartman

    Mayor Newsom is an interesting guy. I met him before as well, and he spoke passionately to us about gay marriage…I was very impressed him, and wrote this blog entry about it:

    http://www.journalscape.com/X_Zachary_Wright/2006-06-06-16:20

    Interesting that Newsom wants to run for Governor of CA, and of course, like almost any successful young politician, probably thinks he could be president someday. His charisma is off the charts. Of course, it may be decades (if ever) before his pro-gay marriage stance plays in many parts of the country, but it will be decades in any event before he could realistically run for president.

    The thing that probably troubles me the most about Newsom is his affair with the wife of his close friend and campaign manager. To me, that speaks directly to his judgment, maturity, character and trustworthiness. To me, an affair is almost always an issue that matters, and is fair game to discuss, no matter what professional field you are in. For example, when I hear about somone in my profession cheating on their their spouse, it makes me much less likely to want to do business with them…the question I have is: “If you cannot be trusted to keep what are arguably the most important vows you will ever make, then how can I trust any promise you make to me in our real estate partnership?” Newsom was in a different, but arguably somewhat worse position…what kind of guy has a secret affair with the wife of his close personal friend?

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