Now, Jerry Brown Tosses Lawman's Hat in Ring
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.
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. (NOTE: Jerry Brown chose politics as a career, but is a graduate of Yale Law School.)
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?...
***
That Mr. Brown, 68, is running to fill a law-and-order post that is beholden to the demands of other state officials — not to mention Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican — might surprise those who remember his maverick, on-my-own 1992 presidential bid. That was his most recent venture on the national political stage. (And his last, he says.) But as the mayor of Oakland since 1999, Mr. Brown has largely run, and delivered, on a promise to crack down on violent crime, which has plagued the city....
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/us/05brown.html?hp&ex=1149480000&en=cce3217c6330e2c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
