Jerry Brown Vies to Succeed Schwarzenegger
Former California governor Jerry Brown announced Tuesday that he would again seek the state's top job, giving the Democratic party an iconic candidate in the contest to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger, a Republican elected in 2003, cannot seek re-election.
Brown, who currently serves as California's attorney general, officially declared his candidacy on his Web site. The announcement has been expected for months, since Brown has been quietly raising millions of dollars.
Brown, who will turn 72 next month, is the only serious Democratic contender. His ability to raise money and gain endorsements frightened away other Democrats, including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
After the June primary, Brown will face one of two wealthy Silicon Valley Republicans in the general election: former eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, a billionaire, or state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who also made nearly $1 billion as a high-tech entrepreneur.
Brown has argued that only a seasoned politician can cut through the political gridlock that has strangled America's largest state and thwarted incumbent Schwarzenegger.
In addition to an ongoing fiscal crisis, California faces problems from the quality of its public schools to the neglect of its state park system.
"What we need is not a scripted plan cooked up by consultants or mere ambition to be governor," he said in his Web cast, taking an apparent shot at Whitman. "We need someone with insider's knowledge but an outsider's mind, a leader who can pull people together - Republicans and Democrats, oil companies and environmentalists, unions and businesses. ... And at this stage in my life, I'm prepared to focus on nothing else but fixing this state I love."Brown has frustrated his fellow Democrats for months while playing a wait-and-see game in the California governor's race. All the while, he was raising nearly $12 million for a gubernatorial campaign while lining up support from deep-pocketed unions, celebrities and other core Democratic supporters.
Brown will rely not only on dependable Democratic supporters but also on his political pedigree.
His experience in statewide office dates to 1970, when he was elected secretary of state. He won the first of his two terms as governor four years later, becoming California's youngest chief executive at age 36.
Brown's roots in California politics are even deeper. His father, Edmund G. Brown, served two terms as governor starting in 1959. His sister, Kathleen, served one term as state treasurer in the 1990s.
He ran three times for the Democratic Party's nomination for president and once for U.S. Senate, then served as the state party chairman in the early 1990s before reinventing himself as the tough-on-crime, pro-development mayor of Oakland. He served two terms before returning to statewide office as attorney general in 2006.
Outside California, Brown is best known for his unorthodox style.
As governor, he chose to live in a $250-a-month apartment instead of the newly built governor's mansion and was given the nickname "Governor Moonbeam" after proposing that California deploy communications satellites into space. He dated singer Linda Ronstadt.
He left politics for a time to study Zen Buddhism in Japan and minister to the ill with Mother Teresa in India.