Brown Ratchets Up Campaign for Governor

California's attorney general appears to have joined his own campaign for the governor's seat.

Jerry Brown stumped at three separate events in Oakland and Los Angeles on Thursday, after a season of relatively light campaigning where a few unions did most of the spending.

"That's a smart strategy because voters don't really focus on this until after labor day," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Sacramento State University.

His Republican opponent, Meg Whitman, meanwhile has spent $120 million of her own money and spoken to groups large and small up and down the state.

Despite the TV ads trashing Brown's legacy during his relative absence from the campaign trail, he and Whitman stand in a tie.

"We've never seen anybody spend this much and for this long. She was running the primary against a well funded Republican opponent and continued to spend over the summer," O'Connor said.