Xavier Becerra can’t dodge the press forever — or these lingering questions

Xavier Becerra wants to be governor, but he is already treating Californians with contempt.

Becerra hasn’t spoken to the media for almost two months, dodging reporters again this week — which also means dodging voters. 

This is how Joe Biden campaigned for president in 2020 — hiding in his basement, rarely appearing except for scripted conversations with hand-picked voters on Zoom.

He continued those habits in the White House. The “autopen” ran the country.

That’s not what democracy looks like.

In a healthy democracy, the candidates make themselves as accessible as possible to the media, to the voters — and to each other.

Xavier Becerra is in hiding, huddling with political advisers, union leaders and special interest groups that are already laying out their agendas, before the first ballot has been mailed in.

Maybe Becerra thinks he can get away with it because California is effectively a one-party state.

The worst Democrat candidate will almost always beat the best Republican candidate, because voter registration is so skewed, and because the unions can always be counted on to turn out the vote for whomever the Democrats tell them to.

So Becerra likely thinks that all he has to do to win is: exactly nothing.

No doubt there are political consultants in his ear, telling him: Don’t talk to the media. There’s only downside. You’ve got this in the bag.

Is he really so afraid? 

It is hard to imagine that Becerra could say anything that would hurt his campaign enough to make a difference to the election result. 

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Unless he is much, much weaker than even his harshest critics believe.

A candidate who refuses to talk to the press, and who refuses to interact with voters in a spontaneous way, might win the election — but will not win a mandate to do anything consequential.

That’s especially the case for Becerra, who has some lingering questions from his time in Washington.

What happened to the 130,000 or so migrant children that he lost track of, after they were allowed to cross illegally, and then released into the country?

How much did Becerra know about the corrupt deal that allowed him to bring his most trusted aide to Washington?

These issues aren’t going to disappear just because Becerra won’t answer questions from reporters.

No one deserves public office. You have to work for it — and that means talking to reporters and asking Californians for their vote.