6.06.2006
This Time, Jerry Brown Wants to Be a Lawman (NYTimes.com)
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: June 5, 2006
OAKLAND, Calif., June 2 — In his nearly four decades in American politics, Jerry Brown has been a lot of things to a lot of people: a two-term California governor, a three-time presidential candidate and, most recently, the mayor of Oakland, this Rodney Dangerfield-like city across the bay from San Francisco.
Mr. Brown in his campaign office last week. He sums up his penchant for campaigning this way: "If you say I like politics, I like government, yeah: did Picasso like to paint?"
But now, Mr. Brown is trying to become something that no one who remembers the freewheeling days of "Governor Moonbeam" could possibly expect: a lawman.
And not just any lawman. Mr. Brown — faced with a mayoral term-limit — is running for attorney general of California, the nation's most populous state and one where hot-button wedge issues like immigration, medical marijuana and same-sex marriage are constantly simmering for law enforcement officials and politicians alike.
Could it be that Mr. Brown — a former Jesuit seminarian who once shared the limelight with Linda Ronstadt, then his girlfriend, tended to the poor with Mother Teresa, and fought The Man with his nonprofit political action committee We the People — is suddenly siding with (gulp) the establishment?
It certainly sounds that way.
(More ... This Time, Jerry Brown Wants to Be a Lawman - New York Times) ¶ 08:13
Published: June 5, 2006
OAKLAND, Calif., June 2 — In his nearly four decades in American politics, Jerry Brown has been a lot of things to a lot of people: a two-term California governor, a three-time presidential candidate and, most recently, the mayor of Oakland, this Rodney Dangerfield-like city across the bay from San Francisco.
Mr. Brown in his campaign office last week. He sums up his penchant for campaigning this way: "If you say I like politics, I like government, yeah: did Picasso like to paint?"
But now, Mr. Brown is trying to become something that no one who remembers the freewheeling days of "Governor Moonbeam" could possibly expect: a lawman.
And not just any lawman. Mr. Brown — faced with a mayoral term-limit — is running for attorney general of California, the nation's most populous state and one where hot-button wedge issues like immigration, medical marijuana and same-sex marriage are constantly simmering for law enforcement officials and politicians alike.
Could it be that Mr. Brown — a former Jesuit seminarian who once shared the limelight with Linda Ronstadt, then his girlfriend, tended to the poor with Mother Teresa, and fought The Man with his nonprofit political action committee We the People — is suddenly siding with (gulp) the establishment?
It certainly sounds that way.
(More ... This Time, Jerry Brown Wants to Be a Lawman - New York Times) ¶ 08:13
