LOS ANGELES – Politicians have lengthy sought to challenge energy, adolescence and a not unusual contact by means of staging picture shoots spotlighting their athletic prowess. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is the newest to determine that plans for a assured leap shot can turn out to be a torrent of on-line potshots.
On a commute to China, the two-term Democrat took a detour from his official meetings on climate change to enroll in a gaggle of Beijing schoolkids for a game of basketball. Before lengthy, he was once on his bottom after unintentionally steamrolling a grade-school defender.
No one was once injured, however Newsom joins an extended line of political figures whose makes an attempt at a sporty glamour shot didn’t figure out as deliberate. In a identical scene, British flesh presser Boris Johnson, then mayor of London, knocked down a 10-year-old boy whilst playing a friendly game of rugby on a commute to Japan.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore had been needled for pictures of them jogging in cosy short-shorts whilst in workplace. In the 2004 presidential election, pictures of Democrat John Kerry windsurfing had been used in an advert mocking him as an unprincipled candidate who heads “whichever way the wind blows.” George W. Bush’s penchant for mountain cycling every now and then ended up with him at the flooring, together with when he collided with a police officer on a commute to Scotland that left the officer with a bruised ankle and the president scraped up.
Video circulating on-line presentations Newsom dressed in slacks, an open-collared blouse and get dressed sneakers whilst towering over schoolchildren at the court docket. The governor playfully twirls a basketball on a fingertip, then executes a spin transfer as he heads towards the basket.
When a boy in entrance of him seems to achieve for the ball, Newsom reputedly does now not see a 2d student on his left. The governor loses his steadiness. They collide and move to the bottom in combination, however each arise smiling and the governor offers the boy a couple of again pats.
“I got you,” the governor may also be heard telling the boy, as he offers him a hug.
The snarky reception on-line was once predictable.
“Flagrant foul,” Fox News tweeted. “Newsom destroys kid during basketball game in China,” superstar site TMZ tweeted. Other on-line feedback ranged from “I can’t stop watching” to a post calling the collision a “diplomatic victory for America.”
Newsom’s tumble equipped a lighthearted — if embarrassing — second on a commute that integrated a surprise meeting with leader Xi Jinping and was once stuffed with warm words now not noticed in years in the strained China-U.S. courting.
It seemed that his basketball stumble equipped the broadest exposure he gained on his consult with.
Newsom jokingly informed the Los Angeles Fox News associate that he “had to paintings” on his steadiness.