I can retire my crystal ball now, as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has done what I’ve been predicting he would for the past few years – he’s ‘unofficially’ thrown his hat into the ring for the 2010 governorship race. The signs have been there for a while. He’s ambitious, he’s consciously put himself in high-profile positions that have attracted national attention, he’s used his role as mayor as a platform for leveraging his political notoriety outside the boundaries of San Francisco, and he’s launched a gubernatorial campaign committee so he can begin fundraising efforts.

 While Newsom’s charisma and tenacious support for highly controversial issues like same-sex marriage has made him a champion to many here in San Francisco, he’s also regarded by a lot of people as a supporter of the crony system of politics, and as someone who cares about his next move rather than the position at hand. Add that to the fact that a lot of the values he has so ardently supported will be vehemently rejected state-wide, when factoring in some of the more conservative parts of the state, and it’s pretty clear he’s going to have a tough job ahead of him. In sum, many of the successes he’s had here in San Francisco are not easily translatable to the rest of California. He will face a determined, resolute opposition. As if to foreshadow this problem, the very day he announced he was assembling his exploratory gubernatorial campaign committee, he was blasted in the papers for his support of San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policy when seven suspected drug dealers from Honduras escaped from their group homes in San Bernardino county, having been sent their to avoid federal prosecution. Newsom has since come out against support of this policy and asked for clarification on criminal cases, a move that may engender the old Republican standby criticism of being a ‘flip-flopper’.

 Also expected to run are former mayor / attorney general / politician-at-large Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former State Controller and 2006 candidate for Governor Steve Westly, and State Superintendent Jack O’Connell – for now.

 It seems as though campaigns are starting earlier and earlier. Perhaps Newsom wanted to ‘unofficially’ launch his campaign in the afterglow of the legal success of same-sex marriage? It’s hard to tell, and hopefully his campaign won’t suffer from some sort of myopically-induced ego aggrandizement. Some of his harder-fought battles play well in San Francisco, but is California going to be as welcoming?