How Did California Democrats Let Eric Swalwell Get This Far, Anyway?

I started hearing the swirling Eric Swalwell rumors a couple of weeks ago. There were stories coming, and they were going to be bad. Well they came, all right–and they were very bad indeed. The excellent San Francisco Chronicle article detailing Swalwell’s alleged sexual assaults against one former staffer was simply appalling to read. The aide charges that Swalwell got her drunk and took advantage of her more than once. 

Swalwell is from California, but one of these incidents allegedly happened in Manhattan, where the district attorney is bringing criminal charges. CNN found three more women making similar allegations. It’s sickening. Late Sunday, Swalwell bowed to the inevitable and announced he was ending his campaign. It appears that he may well be expelled from the House this week. Good. 

How on earth do men who engage in this kind of behavior think they can get away with it? How in the world does he think he can seek higher office—the governorship of the largest state in the union—without this coming out? He ran for governor with a bomb strapped to his chest. It boggles the mind. Except that, well, most men who do this sort of thing do get away with it, don’t they? It’s still terrifying for most women to come forward, risking their young careers in a field they love. That makes it harder to report these stories—again, we must give enormous credit to the Chron for locking this down. Men who know the system and work it to their advantage are just scum. House Democrats need to vote en masse to kick Swalwell to the curb.

A number of commentators, our Perry Bacon among them, had observed previously on what a train wreck the California’s governor’s race had become. Eight Democrats are running, and they threaten to split the Democratic vote enough to potentially enable a Republican, and a Trumpy Republican at that, to prevail in the state’s jungle primary system, under which the top two vote-getters on June 2 face each other in a run-off. 

There’s been pressure on other Democrats to stand down so the party can coalesce around one or two candidates. California electing a GOP governor would be a horror show, especially heading into a presidential election the Republicans show every sign of wanting to steal. Putting California’s hefty 54 electoral votes in anything resembling play and forcing Democrats to spend money in the state for the first time in about 30 years, would be a dream for GOP.

So now, it’s time for some of the other Democrats to drop out of that race tout-suite. I sometimes miss the days of the old party bosses, because what California needs in this case is someone who can say what obviously needs to be said here, which is that the field needs to be cleared for Tom Steyer.

Do I adore Steyer? No. Hedge-fund billionaires aren’t the type who normally make my heart throb. His brief presidential run in the 2020 cycle was unimpressive. I don’t remember a word he said. He’s been taking heat lately over a revelation that his company invested $90 million in a firm that today manages two ICE facilities in California. Those investments are 20 years old, and it’s 14 years since Steyer even ran the company, but such are the matters on which campaigns sometimes turn; something of a person’s character is revealed in how they handle these things once they’re under the klieg lights.

So, no, Steyer wouldn’t be my first choice. But politics isn’t about personal fulfillment. It’s about winning, and stopping the bad guys. The main bad guy in this case is Steve Hilton, who is British (?!) and, perhaps predictably, a former Fox News host. Donald Trump endorsed him recently. On Sunday, the state’s Republicans convened in San Diego and decided to endorse neither Hilton nor his opponent, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. 

The Democrats need to unite behind one candidate, and according to the polls and common sense, that candidate is Steyer. He can win. Easily. Besides, my friend Harold Meyerson, who knows California politics as well as any journalist in America, tells me that Steyer actually holds some progressive positions. He’s funded several liberal ballot measures, supports the 5 percent proposed state wealth tax, wants to end a limit on commercial real-estate tax increases, and backs a number of alternative energy measures.

Over the longer term, the most important lesson the Democratic Party needs to absorb here is to turn away from California and find its national leaders from elsewhere. Swalwell seemed promising, but it turns out he’s a hideous person. Katie Porter, also running for governor, was a terrific member of the House of Representatives. She should have stayed there. Nancy Pelosi was a great speaker in a number of ways, but the Democratic Party doesn’t need any more leaders with a net worth of—sit down—$278 million. Governor Gavin Newsom opposes the wealth tax Steyer backs and angered younger progressives with the way he threw trans athletes under the bus. I don’t know a single person who wants him to be president. And is Kamala Harris really, seriously going to inflict another presidential candidacy on us?

Finally, let’s not forget that all or some of these people undoubtedly knew about Swalwell’s dark side ages ago. They should have gotten together to sink him before he even became a gubernatorial candidate.

I feel similarly about New York, for the most part. Putting completely to the side the personal merits or demerits of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic Party shouldn’t have as its top national leaders two guys who live less than two miles away from each other in a very sui generis city that has about as much in common with middle America as corned beef does with a corn dog.

If this fall’s blue wave is large enough, Democrats will represent a lot of districts across the country that they haven’t for a very long time. They should seize on that moment and identify their future leaders from the heartland. It would be a good thing for them if their future House leader who goes on CNN to speak for the Democratic Party does so with a Midwestern or even a slightly Southern accent (though not too Southern!).

Those Democrats, incidentally, will also be less beholden to the neofascist tech bros and the private equity greedheads who tend to populate California and New York and subvert the liberal politics in those states. Becoming the party of working people once again means becoming a party that can represent middle America on the national stage. The Swalwell scandal is a hard lesson to learn today, but learning it now can light the way for a brighter tomorrow.

MORE TOMASKY NEWS: I have a novel coming out later this month, my first foray into fiction (although I suppose my critics would say otherwise). It’s called Killing Baby Hitler, from O/R Books. It starts out in the future with a group of scientists unlocking the secret to time travel. They decide after much hand-wringing to send two of their number back to 1889 Austria to do the dirty deed, and, well, hijinks ensue. 

Kurt Andersen compares it to Vonnegut. And my friend and yours Molly Jong-Fast calls is “savagely funny [and] inventive” and says it “really explains the dark times we live in.” I agree! Order it here--from the publisher, please, and not from Amazon. Thank you.