{"id":285338,"date":"2026-04-25T09:35:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/285338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T09:35:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T09:35:25","slug":"stop-being-so-chill-xavier-becerra-fight-for-californias-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/285338\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop being so chill, Xavier Becerra. Fight for California’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Xavier Becerra needed to land a knockout punch, even more so than the five other candidates for California governor he was facing at Wednesday night\u2019s debate<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Instead, he fired off some slaps.<\/p>\n

He needed to roar about his many accomplishments in his 35-year career in Sacramento<\/a> and Washington<\/a>, to distinguish himself from the relative political neophytes around him.<\/p>\n

Instead, Becerra recited his resume with the vigor of someone rattling off his LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n

He needed to uplift Californians with a vision of hope, when many feel the state is going in the wrong direction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, he offered the oratory equivalent of a pat on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

No candidate had more at stake that night than Becerra, who went from an afterthought to a contender after Eric Swalwell dropped out<\/a> and resigned his congressional seat over sexual assault allegations. <\/p>\n

Five weeks ago, Becerra and other candidates of color were protesting their exclusion from a USC debate<\/a> because they were all polling so low. Now, the 68-year-old has a chance to become California\u2019s first Latino governor.<\/p>\n

This possibility seems to have uncorked California\u2019s silent majority \u2014 the rancho libertarians turned off by hard-right politics but also the wokoso politics they feel have left them behind. The people who yearn for an unglamorous, competent leader after eight years of all-about-me Gavin Newsom and a decade of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Becerra\u2019s campaign \u2014 once as rudderless as a leaf in a river in a race so chaotic for Democrats that many feared two Republicans would win in the June 2 primary and face each other in the general election \u2014 suddenly latched on to a palpable wave. <\/p>\n

At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend<\/a>, I saw people sporting Becerra campaign buttons who had just come from a rally that was expected to draw a few hundred but instead had more than 2,000 RSVPs. On social media, friends who had never especially cared for state politics suddenly declared they were for Becerra and fought off their more lefty pals who think he\u2019s a Latino Ned Flanders not up for this fraught moment.<\/p>\n

Unglamorous and competent are Becerra\u2019s middle names, and they were on display at the debate \u2014 for better and mostly worse. This was his chance to show both his new followers and undecided voters that they could trust him as California\u2019s next governor. <\/p>\n

But where he needed to be limber like a prizefighter, the former California attorney general was as tightly wound as a Rolex.<\/p>\n

While the other candidates pressed their palms against the lecterns, ready to pounce on every question, Becerra clasped his hands like an altar boy. When he did gesture, his movements never went farther than the span of his shoulders. <\/p>\n

As the others grinned and grimaced at their rivals\u2019 responses, Becerra was as stone-faced as Buster Keaton. He stumbled more than he should have \u2014 how could someone in his position mistake Iraq for Iran when criticizing Trump\u2019s Middle East quagmire? \u2014 and rarely seemed at ease, as if the weight of the moment and the good luck of his surge had suddenly hit him at the worst possible time.<\/p>\n

\"Four <\/p>\n

Candidates in California\u2019s gubernatorial race, from left, Matt Mahan, Xavier Becerra, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton at a debate on April 22, 2026, in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

(Jason Henry \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Becerra\u2019s supporters say a levelheaded leader is what California needs. But voters almost never go for what they need \u2014 they pick what they want. And California wants someone who\u2019s loud, or at least louder than Becerra. There\u2019s a reason that strident partisans such as Republicans Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton and progressives Tom Steyer and Katie Porter have consistently placed high in the polls, while moderates like Becerra, his frenemy Antonio Villaraigosa<\/a> and San Jos\u00e9 Mayor Matt Mahan have lagged.<\/p>\n

The weird thing is that Becerra does know how to brawl. Wallflowers don\u2019t go from a working-class Mexican immigrant family to Stanford Law School. Wimps don\u2019t survive the ruthlessness of Eastside politics<\/a> as an outsider to become a Congress member at just 34. Cowards don\u2019t file more than 100 lawsuits against the Trump administration<\/a> as California\u2019s top prosecutor or tackle the COVID-19 pandemic as President Biden\u2019s Health secretary. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve encountered the Sacramento native only a few times but always came away impressed. In small crowds, he makes people laugh and tear up. He\u2019s quick with ripostes, righteous in off-the-cuff remarks and has a do-gooder aura that never comes off as sanctimonious.<\/p>\n

We saw hints of that Becerra at the debate. To Hilton, he quipped, \u201cYou can be a talking head and not worry about the consequences of what you do,\u201d after the former Fox News host babbled on about how one-party ruled had failed California.<\/p>\n

After Porter accused him of not offering hard numbers for his economic plans, Becerra responded that he has balanced federal budgets larger than California\u2019s. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to say you haven\u2019t done this; it\u2019s easier to prove that you actually have,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

But after Becerra described the evils of racial profiling by law enforcement and Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, ranted that California politicians need to stop thinking so much about race, it was Porter who responded with a verbal haymaker as Becerra silently looked on.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t fight as a choirboy in a battle royale. Becerra wasn\u2019t bad at the debate, but he also wasn\u2019t great \u2014 and that won\u2019t win this race.<\/p>\n

Voters want someone who\u2019ll do the job, yes \u2014 especially if it comes with no drama. They also want to elect someone they think is a human, not a joyless bureaucrat. So how did Becerra respond to the debate\u2019s last question about what was the last series you\u2019ve streamed?<\/p>\n

Becerra flashed his biggest smile of the night. It was such a softball query that even a kindergartner could have slammed it \u00e0 la Shohei Ohtani.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could tell you I had time to watch streaming shows,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

Dude. We\u2019re all overworked, but everyone I know unwinds by watching mindless drivel (my current obsession is \u201cVanderpump Villa\u201d). We all need to relax, even for a moment. As my dad says when he sees me filing one columna after another and urges me to take a break, \u201cEl trabajo nunca se acaba pero uno s\u00ed se acaba.\u201d <\/p>\n

Work never ends, but people do.<\/p>\n

Xavier, you know you\u2019re on the wrong side of California when the only other candidate with a similar answer was Bianco, who said he doesn\u2019t watch television at all.<\/p>\n

Being careful has served you well, but this is the greatest opportunity of your life. You don\u2019t have to suddenly become a flamethrower, but some sparks would help. It\u2019s six weeks until the primary, so time to throw down \u2014 channel your inner cholo and go get what should be yours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xavier Becerra needed to land a knockout punch, even more so than the five other candidates for California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,26532,536,25079,122287,146,16857,592,2211,121,19426,122288,20295,430,3707],"class_list":{"0":"post-285338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-debate","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-few-time","14":"tag-fraught-moment","15":"tag-katie-porter","16":"tag-other-candidate","17":"tag-people","18":"tag-race","19":"tag-sacramento","20":"tag-shoulder","21":"tag-undecided-voter","22":"tag-wednesday-night","23":"tag-week","24":"tag-xavier-becerra"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}