For Many, Jerry Brown Is the Life of the Party

Interesting. Entertaining. Engaging. Charming. Fluent. Nimble. Formidable.

Our subject here is Jerry Brown.

And who uses words like this to describe him? Well, as it happens, it's not only his friends. California's reigning Democratic electoral war horse has cranked up his 11th campaign for public office, and once again he's the talk of politics.

In this case, these exact words are from the mouth of a sworn foe -- a longtime Republican activist who spoke anonymously for the sake of candor but who wants nothing more than to see Brown permanently retired.

That's the thing about Edmund G. Brown Jr. Love him or loathe him, it's hard to deny the strengths of a politician who has always stood apart even when he has been in the center of things.

And the journey is not over. A former governor and son of a former governor, a repeat presidential candidate, a loser for the U.S. Senate, an urban mayor, the brother of a state treasurer who was herself a candidate for governor, Brown is now running for attorney general -- the state's top law enforcement office and, also, a position once held by his father. At 68, he's on the stump in what appears to be high spirits, talking tough about crime, the environment and worker rights, but also having fun coloring outside the lines.

For starters, Brown, now the two-term mayor of Oakland, has his past to contend with.

Didn't he run all those years ago as a fresh-faced reformer? Wasn't he the guy elected Los Angeles Community College trustee in 1969 and secretary of state the following year on a platform "to throw the bums out?"

"Now I have a totally different view," he says, laughing along with his audience at a recent luncheon in Long Beach with maritime executives.

"Forget everything I said. There is no substitute for experience."

Actually, Brown is acutely aware that memories work for him as well as against him, and always have.

In a speech to the Los Angeles Business Council and in a long, relaxed interview with The Times, Brown expounded a candidacy founded on his long experience and his reputation as a maverick and a thinker.

"People say, 'Why are you running?' It's a question I sometimes find irritating. Why not run? Why wouldn't I run?"

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Brown began his political apprenticeship early. Among his first memories: sitting on Dad's lap for a family-man campaign portrait of Edmund G. Brown Sr. It was 1943, the boy was 5 and his father was a candidate for San Francisco district attorney. A framed copy of that Pat Brown campaign's slogan is displayed in Jerry Brown's office today: "Crack down on crime, pick Brown this time."