[Note: None of this actually happened. Well, some of it did.]

Scene: The dated and faded but still warm and inviting interior of the office of Dr. Walter Mencken, Doctor of Psychiatric and Career Restoration. There is a knock at the door, and in walks Nathan Fletcher, troubled politician and 2023’s SD on the QT Man of the Year, gripping a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a child’s stick horse in the other.

Photograph by Grape_vein, IStock, Getty Images

Dr. Walter Mencken: Ah, Mr. Fletcher, welcome. Please, lie down on the couch, make yourself comfortable. And…maybe put down the bottle?

Nathan Fletcher, after taking a hearty gulp: You read the news, doc. I told people I was going away to deal with alcohol and PTSD. But like Hitler and Napoleon before me, I’m a soldier as well as a politician, and both of those guys showed the world what happens when you try to fight a war on two fronts simultaneously. One thing at a time.

WM: Let’s put a pin in the Hitler reference and stick with Napoleon, shall we? If only because of your…horse.

NF: Marengo? Had him since I was a little scamp growing up in Carson City, Nevada, watching my dad keep the peace in a town where folks still wore six shooters on their hips. Rode him clear to Smackover, Arkansas, then back to Carson City, and then all the way to Eureka, California.

WM: According to my records, all that took place before you were four years old. Something about bitter custody battles, involving two father figures — Dad and stepdad.

NF: You’re the one with the records, doc. My point is that a man on a mission needs a trusty steed, a traveling companion on the lonely road.

WM: But some missions take lonelier roads than others, don’t they? I mean, I’m only a humble Career Restoration counselor, but it doesn’t take a Freud to see that all that bouncing between dads when you were young was followed by a certain degree of — well, I don’t want to call it instability just yet. Let’s say “restlessness.”

NF: I’m restin’ now, doc. [Takes another long pull from bottle.]

WM: Fair enough. Still, it’s been a long and winding road to get to this point, hasn’t it? Career-wise, you’ve gone from politician, to corporate strategist for Qualcomm, and back to politician, with a brief stop at teaching at UCSD along the way. And even when you were getting going in politics, you mounted up and rode off to fight for your country with the Marines — not once, but twice! Politically, you went from a conservative Republican arguing for school choice to a progressive Democrat arguing for mandatory vaccines, with a brief stop at Independent along the way. And of course, there’s your marriages.

NF: Careful, doc. You’ve got me on the couch, not my wife. And you don’t want to tangle with her. Remember, she made the richest man in the world move the most valuable car company in the world from California to Texas with a single Tweet.

WM: Ah yes, “F*ck Elon Musk.” She does have a way with words. But don’t worry, we’re here to talk about you, not her. She’s part of the whole restlessness narrative, because, of course, she’s not your first wife. She’s not even your first politically connected wife. As with your politics, you started out with a Republican — the comms director for the National Republican Party, no less. Let’s see, you married Mindy in 2003, right around the time you jumped ship from the California Republican Party and went to work for Randy “Duke” Cunningham. He was a big fish, that Randy, even if he stank worse than just about any of San Diego’s many, many Very Bad Good Old Boys — and I say that as a man who once drank with Duncan Hunter, Jr. But getting back to you: after you divorced Mindy, you married Lorena in 2017, right before you re-entered politics and ran for the County Board of Supervisors.

NF: I don’t think I like your insinuation there, doc.

WM: I’m not insinuating anything. I’m just noting the calendar. Because, well, here you are in February of 2023, announcing your intention to move up from County politics to the state Senate, and then a month later…

NF: Yeah, yeah. [Takes brief swig.] Grecia.

WM: Yes, Grecia. Was she hoping you’d make a habit of “new life, new wife”?

NF: No comment.

WM: Yes of course. Pending litigation and all that. Plus, there was a Tweet from She Who Tweets. “Sorry, I’m not sorry,” right? Referencing Beyoncé’s “Sorry, I ain’t sorry” blast against her hubby after his alleged infidelities? Yes, probably best to stick with “no comment.” I’m not a family therapist, after all. Just pointing out what looks, from the outside at least, like another bend in the lonely road.

NF: Not totally lonely. I’ve still got Marengo.

WM: Let’s talk about that. A horse may be a great traveling companion, but he’s not the best company at the journey’s end. And that’s what I want to talk about: where do you see this ending? You talked about being a man on a mission. What’s the mission, exactly?

NF: What do you think it is, doc?

WM: Well, your next stop was supposed to be Sacramento. But you’ve already been there, with the Assembly. Surely that’s not the end of the trail. You weren’t just gonna tie Marengo to the Senate hitching post and settle in for a few decades of mutual back-scratching.

NF: You watch much television, doc?

WM: Not if I can help it.

NF: There was a pretty good show on in late November. More of a seasonal special. Couple of guys roasting each other about their home states.

WM: Ah. The Newsom-DeSantis debate. The one where DeSantis pulled out the map showing public poop alerts around San Francisco.

NF: Yeah, that was funny. But it didn’t matter. Because Newsom won that debate the second he got up on a stage, on national television, to debate an official Presidential candidate, just for kicks. He got DeSantis to step into the ring. That was like Apollo Creed fighting Rocky — Rocky had no business being there, but once he was, he had credibility. It didn’t matter if DeSantis had a poop map and a good story about Newsom’s father-in-law. The night was Newsom’s. His path is clear now. He’s a man on a mission, just like me.

WM: Just like…you. Oh my God. That’s it. It all fits. He’s just like you. Or rather, you’re just like him. The youthful religiosity: you the debater from California Baptist University, him the Jesuit-educated “Irish Catholic rebel.” The rightward lean of the early political career — Newsom called himself a centrist, his opponents actually called him a conservative — before the full-on embrace of California progressivism. The first marriage to a Republican operator — Kimberly Guilfoyle went on to work for Fox and Trump, for goodness sake. The stint on the Board of Supervisors. Hell, there’s even the prescient early support of gay rights: your 2010 floor speech in the Assembly calling for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and his 2004 move as mayor of San Francisco to issue illegal marriage licenses to gay couples. And now, you’ve got the affair and rehab, just like him, even if the timing and details don’t quite align — he slept with his friend’s wife during his first marriage, and went to rehab just after starting his second. But still; it’s one more piece of the puzzle. You’re not setting yourself up to be Newsom’s successor when he goes national. You’re going to be his replacement; his doppelganger. California’s not even going to notice the change. And the astonishing thing is, you must have been planning this for years, like Eve Harrington. The poor kid from Smackover, stepping into the role held by a kid born Getty-adjacent and Pelosi-related, all thanks to careful study and imitation.

NF: [Takes comically long pull from bottle, never breaking eye contact with Mencken. One swallow. Two swallows. Three. Four. Finally, he lowers both the bottle and his gaze. He chuckles, then looks back at Mencken.] Crazy theory, doc. But still, good to talk. You know what? I think I’m feeling better already.