November 2, 2010: Jerry Brown is elected Governor of California. It was a stunning comeback for a politician that most political observers had given up on long ago.
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. was born on April 7, 1938 in San Francisco. His father, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, was Governor of California from 1959 to 1967, but was beaten for a 3rd term by Ronald Reagan. Pat had wanted to become the 1st Catholic President in 1960, but his campaign went nowhere, and while that year did see the election of the 1st Catholic President, it was Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Jerry considered becoming a priest, but dropped out of the necessary school, and instead graduated from the University of California in Berkeley and Yale Law School. He joined a law firm in Los Angeles, and, in 1968, he won his 1st political office, to that city's Community College Board of Trustees. He was elected California's Secretary of State in 1970, despite Reagan's re-election.
After Reagan left the Governorship after 2 terms, Jerry, then the State's Secretary of State, ran for the office in 1974. In a hotly contested Democratic Primary, he got 38 percent of the vote, beating out Mayor Joseph Alioto of San Francisco with 19 and Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti with 16. In the general election, he beat Reagan's Lieutenant Governor, Houston Flournoy, 50.1 percent to 47.2. Brown won only 3 of the 10 Counties in Southern California: Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Imperial, but Los Angeles County gave him his margin of victory.
His lifestyle was unconventional, especially for a politician. He was single, but dated some well-known women, including singer Linda Ronstadt. He kept a small apartment near the State Capitol in Sacramento, rather than move into the Governor's Mansion. Tonight Show host Johnny Carson once joked that Brown skateboarded to work.
But the man derided as "Governor Moonbeam" won a 2nd term in 1978. He defeated Evelle Younger, who had succeeded him as the State's Attorney General, and had previously been the District Attorney of Los Angeles, successfully prosecuting Charles Manson and Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan. This time, Brown won 56 percent of the vote, including 49 of California's 58 Counties.
At the time, the law allowed him to run for a 3rd term as Governor in 1982. Instead, he ran for the U.S. Senate, against Mayor Pete Wilson of San Diego. Despite it being a good year for Democrats nationally, people in California were tired of Brown, and Wilson won, 51.5 percent to 44.8. Brown won only 5 Counties: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Alameda (Oakland) and Yolo. He went into political exile.
In 1989, he began a comeback, being named Chairman of the California Democratic Party. He ran for President again in 1992, soliciting campaign contributions through a toll-free "800 number." (It's no longer in service.) Despite having name recognition on his side, he finished 3rd among Democrats, behind Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. By the time of the California Primary on June 2, Clinton pretty much had the race wrapped up, and Brown's only chance at preventing an actual clinch of the nomination by Clinton was to win his home State. Even there, he finished 3rd.
For the 2nd time, his political career seemed dead and buried. Wilson was California's man of the moment. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1988, and was elected Governor in 1990. In 1994, he was opposed for re-election by Jerry's sister, State Treasurer Kathleen Brown. But it was a big year for Republicans, and she did not come close to becoming the 3rd Brown to be elected Governor. Pat Brown lived long enough to see his daughter's defeat, dying in 1996, without seeing his son make another comeback. Kathleen has never run for office again.
In 1995, Jerry began a talk show on an Oakland radio station, showing he was still in tune with current events in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1998, he ran for Mayor of Oakland, and, despite being a 60-year-old white man (who had lost his famous hair) in a majority-black city, he won. He won again in 2002, and was returned to the office of California's Attorney General in 2006.
In the interim, California had passed term limits on all elected officials, including a 2-term limit for the Governor. That law was why Brown had served only 2 terms as Mayor and 2 in his 2nd go-around as Attorney General. But since he had served as Governor (and as Attorney General) before the law was passed, he was constitutionally permitted to try again -- but (in each case) only for 2 more terms.
In 2010, he regained the Governorship, defeating former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, 53 percent to 40. After the 2003 recall of Governor Gray Davis, and then 7 years of Arnold Schwarzenegger proving that he was a celebrity in over his head as "The Governator," Californians realized that even ol' Governor Moonbeam would have been an improvement. (Hopefully, after Reagan and "Ahnold," California will never elect another Republican actor to high office.)
His return to the Governorship in 2010 was a Democratic highlight in what was mostly a big year for Republicans, who gained 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, their best performance since 1938, and enough to take control; and 6 seats in the Senate, though that wasn't enough to take control.
Among the new Senators elected were Republicans Marco Rubio in Florida, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Rob Portman in Ohio, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Although 10 Democrats were re-elected, including Barbara Boxer in California, possibly "on Brown's coattails," no new Democrats were elected to the Senate that year.
Brown won a 4th term as Governor in 2014, his best performance, getting slightly under 60 percent of the vote against Neel Kashkari, a Kashmiri-American who had served under President George W. Bush as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
The term-limit law meant that he couldn't run again in 2018, even if he wanted to. But he let office as popular as ever. Hey, give him 40 years, and he'll get it right. Although it wasn't all consecutive, he served 16 years and 5 days as Governor of his State, longer than anyone in American history.
Having entered the office of Governor of California at the age of 36, making him the youngest Governor in the State's history, he left office as the oldest, 80. Given that most States have a 2-term limit on their Governors -- although many still don't, like New York, and some, like New Jersey and North Carolina, limit their Governors only to 2 consecutive terms, allowing for a 3rd after a hiatus -- this feat is unlikely to be repeated in any State. Certainly, not at ages of 36 or under and 80 or older.
In 1990, Brown met Anne Gust, then an executive for clothing company The Gap. A native of the Detroit suburbs, she's a graduate of Stanford University and the law school at the University of Michigan. She's 20 years his junior, but, being that they were then 52 and 32, it didn't make nearly as much of a difference. They have lived together ever since, although they did not get married until 2005. Brown is not known to have any children.
As of November 2, 2022, they live on a ranch in Colusa County, outside Sacramento. Jerry Brown finally has something in common with Ronald Reagan: He's an elderly ex-Governor who married a redhead and lives on a ranch in California. Kathleen is also still alive, married to her 2nd husband, having had 3 children with her 1st, although none has shown any sign of running for office.
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November 2, 2010 was, like most Election Days in America, a Tuesday. The day before, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series for the 1st time since moving from New York, defeating the Texas Rangers.
Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA:
* The Washington Wizards beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 116-115 at the Verizon Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington.
* The Miami Heat beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 129-97 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 100-88 at the Quicken Loans Arena (now the Rocket Arena) in Cleveland.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 109-86 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.
* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 90-76 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.
* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 124-105 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.
And there were 4 games in the NHL:
* The Ottawa Senators beat their arch-rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.
* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-0 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
* The Minnesota Wild beat the San Jose Sharks, 1-0 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at Rexall Place (as the Northlands Coliseum was then known) in Edmonton.
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