In a sense Jerry Brown never really left California politics, except for a relatively brief period in the mid-1980s. The turning point came with Brown’s 1982 senate defeat at the hands of Pete Wilson, after which he appeared for many years to be someone with more political past than future. But it was only a short six years later that he was back as state party chairman. After another four years he was running for president again and half a dozen years later he was elected Mayor of Oakland.
Nonetheless, for those of us who grew up or lived in California in the 1970s it’s a little stunning that Brown appears to be the Democrat best positioned to win the governorship again in 2010. Although the election is 14 months away (and that’s several lifetimes in politics), by most conventional measures he’s now the frontrunner to reclaim at 72 the governor’s office he first held at 36.
The latest data shows him beating each of the possible Republican contenders.
