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Jewish World Review Oct. 27, 2010 19 Mar-Cheshvan, 5771 Gov. Moonbeam Comes Back to Earth By Roger Simon
He became eligible for Social Security a few years ago -- he is 72 -- and having become California's youngest elected governor at age 36, he is on the verge of becoming its oldest elected governor.
In a year when political experience is derided, incumbency is an anchor around the neck and money means everything, Brown, a Democrat, has just opened a double-digit lead over billionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman, who has contributed a record-shattering $142 million to her own campaign and has outspent Brown 14 to one.
Whitman has never served a day in office -- not necessarily a drawback in our current national mood -- while Brown has spent quite a few. A lifetime, in fact. Brown has served as Los Angeles Community College trustee (1969-1971), California secretary of state (1971-1975), governor of California (1975-1983), chairman of the California Democratic Party (1989-1991) and mayor of Oakland (1999-2007), and he is currently California's attorney general.
Like many successful politicians, he is not afraid to lose. He ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States in 1976, 1980 and 1992 and for the U.S. Senate in 1982.
I remember his first words to me. "We are all on Spaceship Earth," he told me one warm June afternoon in 1976. I looked around. It appeared to me as if we were on a campaign bus in Southern California. "The dialectic process between co-equal branches takes unpredictable turns," he went on. "This is all part of the discipline of the process. We cannot accept verbal cellophane for policy."
Even by the standards of the time, Jerry Brown appeared to be one weird dude. (Chicago columnist Mike Royko dubbed him "Gov. Moonbeam," a sobriquet that has stuck with Brown to this day, even though Royko later apologized.)
But Brown did not do all that badly in his first presidential run, winning five primaries and having enough credibility to run for president again four years later, where I caught up with him in New Hampshire. His pitch was simpler this time: Vote for Jerry Brown or die.
"The prospects are bleak. We are looking down the road to depression and world war. The chickens are coming home to roost. We are an island of affluence, sinking in a rising sea of despair," he told about 75 Sears employees in the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester one bone-chillingly cold winter day.
"Draft registration is just a way of getting kids to die to make oil companies richer," he continued. "Nuclear power is grossly immoral. It can destroy our gene pool, irradiate our food chain, and the people making the decisions don't care. Have you got your iodine for your thyroid cancer yet?"
That pretty much did it. The crowd began edging away. Down the street, Ronald Reagan was preaching the politics of joy, while Brown was talking about thyroid cancer.
Brown didn't care. He stood there lean and hungry-looking (he was on the Pritikin diet) in his conservative gray suit, his digital watch still set on California time, lobbing these hand grenades into the crowd.
"There is a deterioration of human, technical and environmental assets," he said. "We face increasing social tension, the unraveling of the social fabric, and our economy is out of control."
And while this shocked people in 1980 -- he didn't win any primaries at all -- it wouldn't shock people today. Today, it sounds pretty mainstream.
After his speech at the mall, I asked him how he could possibly beat both Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, considering they had much better financed campaigns.
"I'm lean and frugal and low to the ground," Brown said. "I'm broke and in trouble. And that is why I am just like America."
To some, he was never a very likable guy. Bill Clinton came close to physically assaulting him during a televised debate in 1992.
"I think he (Clinton) has a big electability problem," Brown said near the end of the debate in Chicago, the last one before the Illinois primary. "He is funneling money to his wife's law firm."
Clinton turned a furious shade of red. "Let me tell you something, Jerry," Clinton said, shaking his finger at Brown, "I don't care what you say about me ... but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife. You're not worth being on the same platform with my wife!"
Clinton seemed ready to stride over and smack Brown -- Clinton is a big guy -- but he settled for a verbal smackdown, instead. "Jerry comes here with his family wealth and his $1,500 suit, and makes a lying accusation about my wife," Clinton sneered.
See? Politics was fun even before witches were running.
The two have since made up, with Clinton campaigning for Brown at UCLA about 10 days ago, saying of Brown and Meg Whitman: "These candidates have dramatically different ideas. One will lead you to a brighter future. The other will lead you to a movie we've seen before."
Whitman has stuck to the Republican playbook. "I think the contrast between Jerry and me will be in stark relief: a career politician versus a career businessperson who has created jobs, who has managed a business," she said. "It will be outsider versus insider."
"I have an outsider's mind with an insider's perspective," Brown responded.
Which could lead to interesting things.
Once, as governor, Brown spent hours reviewing the California National Guard on a patch of desert, watching tank after tank rumble by. And when all the troops had assembled before him and the clouds of choking dust had settled, he leaned into the microphone and said: "I just got an idea. Let's invade Nevada."
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