Newsom’s role in providing marriage licenses for same sex couples in defiance of his political advisors, conventional wisdom, and the completely predictable government reaction demonstrates for me a person willing to make challenging decisions on the basis of what is right.
No politician will ever line up 100% with what we want, and politics is a messy business. But I think that Newsom took positions that a more political politician like Clinton (defense of marriage act, don’t ask don’t tell) wouldn’t touch.