Larry Elder smiled the smug smile of a Black conservative who could very well be liberal California’s next governor.

“Where do you start with the damage Gavin Newsom has done to the state that we both love?”

He leaned forward to gaze across the room of white Republicans who had come to a hear him speak in Orange County.

“Rising crime? (It’s) because of this phony narrative that the police are engaging in systemic racism and cops are pulling back,” Elder said. "... When you reduce the possibility of a bad guy getting caught, getting convicted and getting incarcerated, guess what? Crime goes up.”

Then another smile, this one even more smug than the last.

“Can you say, ‘Duh?’”

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