On Jerry Brown: California's Next Governor and a Great American Progressive. [View All]

[David Zephyr]

Trust me. This Californian can tell you that the love and simpatico from the north to the south here in the Golden State for Jerry is deep and real.

Jerry Brown took this State back from Ronald Reagan who left us deep in red ink and turned that ink into black ink. The California state universities are the legacy of Jerry's father. Jerry Brown invented the California Conservation Corp which Clinton's Americorp copied to the letter and used as the template for that great organization.

Jerry Brown was the first political leader to decriminalize homosexuality. He did it way back in the 1970's with the help of the great Willie Brown, as his first act as Governor, knowing full well that even though he was straight, his being a single man would start malicious whispering behind his back. Sure enough, the whispering and jokes began. Jerry was MAN enough to care less what people thought. He just did the right thing. And this older, gay guy will always remember Brown's bold and courageous act. Jerry did it because he knew that someone had to put an end, once and for all, to the arresting of good gay men and women for simply being who they were.

Jerry Brown put the first African-American and the first Latino on the Supreme Court here way back when it wasn't perhaps popular to do so, but Jerry did it because it was the right thing to do. He didn't worry about how it would play with the public. He showed leadership. That is Jerry Brown.

Jerry Brown fought back against Mobile and Exxon and Chevron with every trick he had to prevent them from drilling off our coast lines. He turned them back and we've kept our coast lines ever since. All these years. Over thirty years. Thank you, Jerry.

Brown was an environmentalist before it was cool to be so. And it was always sincere.

There's just too much that few people know about this guy, but I'll leave you with this:

That cute little moniker of "moonbeam" was given to him by none other than the the late Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune. Years later, Mike wrote that he came up with that name because Jerry had wanted California to utilize satellites to hook up the northern part of the state with the southern part for quick fingerprint identification. It was considered goofy at the time, but today every state does just what Jerry did and Mike Royko proclaimed "Look, I gave Jerry Brown that moonbeam name and I'm taking it back!"

When election time comes around, California's unions with proud working women and men will stand with their old friend and ally, as will the GLBT community and California's very rich multi-colored and multi-ethnic populace.

Jerry Brown will be the next Governor of California.

Here's a photo of Jerry and the late, great Cesar Chavez marching together. It doesn't get more real than this.