POLITICS: ‘Wildly premature?’ Oh, please

Oh, please.

That’s our two-word reply to Gavin Newsom after his own two-word dismissal of a California Post reporter’s question about his presidential ambitions.

“It’s wildly premature,” the guv said on Thursday when asked if he’s running for the White House.

That’s disingenuous, to put it mildly.

Newsom would do well to spend less time scheming to be president –– and then denying it –– and more time confronting crises in the state he’s meant to govern.

After all, if it’s premature for Newsom to discuss measuring curtains for the Oval Office, then:

Is it premature for the California governor to parade around Europe –– twice in three weeks –– to scoff at Donald Trump and pose as president-in-waiting?

Is it premature to tour the country to hawk a book with the Obama-esque title, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery”?

Is it premature to visit key early Democratic primary states on said book tour?

Is it premature to manufacture headlines –– and brand himself as resister-in-chief –– by trolling the president on social media?

We’ve seen the Gavin Newsom show for months: He gallivants hither and yon, conveniently boosting his presidential profile while shirking his duties at home and playing coy about his future.

The game speaks to the guv’s record of inauthenticity –– and indeed, his near-perpetual political theater.

That includes his grandiose promises on issues from homebuilding to homeless relief and his penchant for telling an audience what it wants to hear (as on his self-promoting podcast in March 2025 when he called men competing in women’s sports “profoundly unjust”).

And who can forget Newsom’s infamous January 2025 moment in the Palisades, when he fibbed to a fire victim about a phone-call-in-progress with then-President Biden?

Newsom’s game also speaks to his small-target tactic.

He knows: By downplaying his ambitions, he shrinks (for now) as a target for would-be rivals, Democrat or Republican.

What he thinks is clever is just transparent, tired, and disrespectful to Californians.

State residents are still waiting for the guv to confront a long list of crises here, including: chronic high rates of homelessness; a staggering lack of affordability; stubborn housing, water, energy and road-capacity shortages; abysmal public education outcomes; overtaxation — including an absurd proposed billionaire tax; woeful underperformance by state government; rampant fraud; widespread crime; union and other special-interest capture of Sacramento; and more.

But at least Golden Staters can read about Newom’s childhood in San Francisco when the memoir drops on Feb. 24.

Also not premature: calling the governor out on his games.