I know that in recent years, Jerry Brown has taken some idiosyncratic stances that diverge from his “Governor Moonbeam” days — most prominently, inviting the U.S. Marine Corps to stage war games at a defunct Oakland army base and filing a friend-of-the-court brief “asking that Chicago’s gun ban be overturned – arguing that if the court doesn’t act, ‘California citizens could be deprived of the constitutional right to possess handguns in their homes.’”
But I hear about the possibility – not probability – that he could be back as a rerun as the state’s next governor and I’m left shaking my head. The state’s a disaster area; there just isn’t any money left. The state legislature appears to consist mostly of demonic toddlers. Employers are running away from the state faster than sponsors are running away from Tiger Woods. The real-estate market is worse than Pompeii. The state is resembling Tupac’s “California Love” video way ahead of schedule. (Do I even need to include the content warning on that link?)
After two years of hearing that 72-year-old John McCain was too old to be president, the state is supposed to put the ball in the hands of a 71-year-old who’s been in state government since 1971, who’s emphasizing that “Sacramento isn’t working,” and who laments the “breakdown in Sacramento”? (Sir, if runaway partisanship is destroying the state government’s ability to solve problems, I’d begin by blaming the state attorney general who took his own state’s voters to court on Proposition 8.)
Anyway, as noted, if elected, this will be the second time around for Brown, who was governor during California’s golden years of 1975 to 1982, the good old days of rising crime, disco, 10 percent unemployment, and Squeaky Fromme’s assassination attempt. I was surprised to learn that his gubernatorial records are sealed until 2038.
This prompts the folks at the Republican Governors Association to start a petition and ask, “What has Brown done to you?“