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Gavin's Old Girlfriend

Gavin Newsom is a case study of why not to run for president. For starters, his wife is the target of a Justice Department investigation, which he claims, with reason, is entirely political. And now his personal life is coming under the microscope.

The latest has to do with an affair he had 20 years ago that was a colossal exercise in bad judgment on his part. He was the mayor of San Francisco at the time. She worked for him, as his appointments secretary. Her husband, supposedly one of Gavin's closest friends and former deputy chief of staff, was running his reelection campaign.

Messy. Or worse. Relationships like that are not illegal -- he was single at the time -- however, that doesn't make them appropriate. But it was 20 years ago? Should it matter now? Compared to who? Does President Donald Trump set the new standard for acceptable misconduct?

Gavin's affair was big news back in 2007 when the husband abruptly quit Newsom's campaign after his wife told him about the affair. Newsom owned it. And then the issue largely went away.

What has brought it back is the woman herself. In a long piece this week in Vanity Fair, which has been picked up by newspapers across the country, Ruby Rippey offers a detailed account of her side of the story. It is damning. While she blames herself for cheating on her husband, she also blames Newsom for abusing his power.

"Power does not need to coerce," she writes. "It only needs to exist. The responsibility to hold the line belongs to the one who holds it. That didn't happen." Rippey descended into a spiral of alcohol and drug use after the news of the affair went public, from which she has recovered.

Newsom was a scumbag. It was 20 years ago. He has since remarried (his first wife was Kimberly Guilfoyle) and has a fabulous wife and a great family. Should we even be talking about this 20-year-old affair?

That was clearly Ms. Rippey's choice. In explaining her decision to go public in detail (and retain high-powered PR representation), she wrote: "Until now, silence felt like the right choice. Now it feels necessary to offer a fuller account of what happened, rather than allowing a misleading account to stand as the whole story."

She added that her essay was not intended as "a hit piece or a redemption story," although it reads as some of both. "It's about accountability, consequences and earning the right to tell the truth after 20 years of silence and repair."

The "misleading account" seems like a not-so-veiled reference to Newsom's discussion of the affair in his "campaign memoir" -- the chosen narrative of his life -- out earlier this year. In the memoir, Ms. Rippey gets a total of two paragraphs, in which he describes their relationship as "the stupidest and also briefest of affairs."

Short shrift to a relationship that clearly meant much more to her. The question is, what should it mean to you, as a voter?

Is it just another tale out of school of a politician behaving badly, something we've come to accept and even dismiss?

Or is it a window into character, which is ultimately what counts the most in presidential politics?

On Tuesday morning, Izzy Gardon, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, said: "The governor acknowledged his role and publicly apologized for his conduct nearly two decades ago when he was still mayor. In the time since, he met his wife, started a family and has focused on serving Californians. He addressed this chapter of his life, including in his memoir, and out of respect for everyone involved, does not have anything further to add."

Has enough been said? Does it matter? That will be up to voters to decide.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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