Governor Brown Had a Bad Week Too

While national media attention was fixed on the White House and the multiple convulsions in the Carter Cabinet, some pretty interesting things were happening at the other end of the country which will also affect the 1980 outcome. This time, for a change, it was good news for Jimmy Carter: Governor Jerry Brown, the nearest thing to an announced Democratic challenger, has begun to self-destruct like doomed Skylab, tumbling and breaking apart with a last gasp of pyrotechnics in the night-time sky.

The last time the national media paid much attention to California’s young, ambitious, enigmatic governor was when he toured Africa with rock star Linda Ronstadt. Still earlier, Brown rated headlines when he suddenly fell in love with Proposition 13 after opposing it vigorously for months. He made the switch just in time to go on the 10:00 p.m. news, as early election returns indicated that the draconian tax-cutting measure would carry by a landslide. Then in the intervening weeks before his own re-election Brown became such a zealous champion of “Prop 13” that its originator, Howard Jarvis, taped laudatory commercials that Brown used in his campaign.

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Philip Nicolaides

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Presidential Election

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While national media attention was fixed on the White House and the multiple convulsions in the Carter Cabinet, some pretty interesting things were happening at the other end of the country which will also affect the 1980 outcome. This time, for a change, it was good news for Jimmy Carter: Governor Jerry Brown, the nearest thing to an announced Democratic challenger, has begun to self-destruct like doomed Skylab, tumbling and breaking apart with a last gasp of pyrotechnics in the night-time sky.

The last time the national media paid much attention to California’s young, ambitious, enigmatic governor was when he toured Africa with rock star Linda Ronstadt. Still earlier, Brown rated headlines when he suddenly fell in love with Proposition 13 after opposing it vigorously for months. He made the switch just in time to go on the 10:00 p.m. news, as early election returns indicated that the draconian tax-cutting measure would carry by a landslide. Then in the intervening weeks before his own re-election Brown became such a zealous champion of “Prop 13” that its originator, Howard Jarvis, taped laudatory commercials that Brown used in his campaign.