I have a friend who was made aware of a half-sister via a search on a genealogy website. Of course, that meant learning her father had produced this sister while married to another woman. Fortunately, she already had a fairly negative opinion of her father.
Via Alex Berenson’s Substack, a very interesting biographical look at Gavin Newsom. The story about dyslexia appears to be true. The author’s conclusion is that Newsom can be devastatingly effective on the campaign trail, but that he has no core beliefs. He does whatever will make him popular, or what he thinks will do so.
Kate: If Gavin Newsom has a core belief, it is that he deserves to be king (or failing that, president at least) without earning the job through hard work and study. If this reminds you of Kamala Harris, I won’t disagree with you.
The author I linked to (Brad Pearce) likens Newsom to Bill Clinton in his ability to make connections in personal appearances. The difference he sees is that Clinton is also highly intelligent. Newsom is not.
How reliable is the SAT as an intelligence predictor?
Axe Sarkle Barbie Ken.
om, the Pearce doesn’t think Newsom is unintelligent because of his SAT score, but rather because of his demonstrated inability to connect data into a story and think strategically.
75% Approve! CBS Poll post State of the Union shows huge majority approve of the speech – Video
We didn’t know about his SAT score but we could all see the results of is governing and intellectual skilz written all over California.
Sparkle Barbie Ken didn’t look too bright during COVID, his dining out at that spendy Nappa Valley place while the serfs were confined to quarters. Or dudes being arrested for surfing.
Entitled and stupid.
A 960 SAT is roughly 40th percentile nationally, meaning even for students who didn’t take the SAT, which means that Newsom’s IQ is either somewhere between 90 – 100, or he was just too lazy to bother to do well on it. I suspect the second.
The SAT has been renormed several times since Newsom would have taken it but it doesn’t much matter for a score like 960.
He didn’t need his SAT scores to get admitted to colleges, he worked his family connections for that. It’s not like he needed a college degree to work, since the Gettys bankrolled his businesses and found him positions, and he’s been in government since 1997.
The oldest public mention I can find of Newsom’s dyslexia is from 2003, but the source is Newsom himself, so who knows how true that is. Link is to a surprisingly negative story from the 2003 SF Chronicle.
I’m not a Newsom fan; however, it is likely that dyslexia would affect his SAT score, if he can’t properly read the questions. His life history doesn’t suggest he’s above-average intelligence in general.
Back in the 2000s I was in a San Francisco writers group. One member worked in the Newsom’s office while he was mayor of SF. She said, laughingly, that everyone in the office knew Newsom couldn’t read.
I don’t know whether that meant he read poorly or not at all, but it was a problem.
960 is too high a score for someone who really can’t read. Guessing randomly at questions got you a score of about 400.
If he read so poorly as to negatively affect his SAT score, how did he get so close to the population mean? He’d have to be significantly smarter than average to make up for reading much worse than average, and the worse his reading is the smarter he would have to be.
Of course we don’t KNOW he got a 960 SAT, he may have pulled that number out of the air.
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I have a friend who was made aware of a half-sister via a search on a genealogy website. Of course, that meant learning her father had produced this sister while married to another woman. Fortunately, she already had a fairly negative opinion of her father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQndFMdYl60
Via Alex Berenson’s Substack, a very interesting biographical look at Gavin Newsom. The story about dyslexia appears to be true. The author’s conclusion is that Newsom can be devastatingly effective on the campaign trail, but that he has no core beliefs. He does whatever will make him popular, or what he thinks will do so.
https://www.thewaywardrabbler.com/p/gavin-newsom-doesnt-need-a-narrative
Kate: If Gavin Newsom has a core belief, it is that he deserves to be king (or failing that, president at least) without earning the job through hard work and study. If this reminds you of Kamala Harris, I won’t disagree with you.
The author I linked to (Brad Pearce) likens Newsom to Bill Clinton in his ability to make connections in personal appearances. The difference he sees is that Clinton is also highly intelligent. Newsom is not.
How reliable is the SAT as an intelligence predictor?
Axe Sarkle Barbie Ken.
om, the Pearce doesn’t think Newsom is unintelligent because of his SAT score, but rather because of his demonstrated inability to connect data into a story and think strategically.
75% Approve! CBS Poll post State of the Union shows huge majority approve of the speech – Video
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/02/75-approve-cbs-poll-post-state-of-union.html
We didn’t know about his SAT score but we could all see the results of is governing and intellectual skilz written all over California.
Sparkle Barbie Ken didn’t look too bright during COVID, his dining out at that spendy Nappa Valley place while the serfs were confined to quarters. Or dudes being arrested for surfing.
Entitled and stupid.
A 960 SAT is roughly 40th percentile nationally, meaning even for students who didn’t take the SAT, which means that Newsom’s IQ is either somewhere between 90 – 100, or he was just too lazy to bother to do well on it. I suspect the second.
The SAT has been renormed several times since Newsom would have taken it but it doesn’t much matter for a score like 960.
He didn’t need his SAT scores to get admitted to colleges, he worked his family connections for that. It’s not like he needed a college degree to work, since the Gettys bankrolled his businesses and found him positions, and he’s been in government since 1997.
The oldest public mention I can find of Newsom’s dyslexia is from 2003, but the source is Newsom himself, so who knows how true that is. Link is to a surprisingly negative story from the 2003 SF Chronicle.
I’m not a Newsom fan; however, it is likely that dyslexia would affect his SAT score, if he can’t properly read the questions. His life history doesn’t suggest he’s above-average intelligence in general.
Back in the 2000s I was in a San Francisco writers group. One member worked in the Newsom’s office while he was mayor of SF. She said, laughingly, that everyone in the office knew Newsom couldn’t read.
I don’t know whether that meant he read poorly or not at all, but it was a problem.
960 is too high a score for someone who really can’t read. Guessing randomly at questions got you a score of about 400.
If he read so poorly as to negatively affect his SAT score, how did he get so close to the population mean? He’d have to be significantly smarter than average to make up for reading much worse than average, and the worse his reading is the smarter he would have to be.
Of course we don’t KNOW he got a 960 SAT, he may have pulled that number out of the air.