Gavin Newsom’s Big Idea

Not long ago, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, was dismissed as a showboating opportunist who cared more about climbing the political ladder than he did about the finer details of public policy. But his decision to abandon the dream of a high-speed train that would ferry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco, at least for now, suggests that he’s made of sterner stuff. Lamented by romantic environmentalists, for whom high-speed rail has long served as an emblem of ecological virtue, and cheered by critics on the right as a rare reversal for California’s ascendant left, the decision to