It is ironic that while supporters of Hillary Clinton worry that her relatively advanced age will become an issue in the 2016 presidential election, the one Democrat with a legitimate chance of beating her in a primary campaign will most probably not run because he is too old. Imagine if Ms. Clintons possible opponents were not either relative unknowns seeking to plant a flag for the future like Maryland Governor Martin OMalley, or minor candidates unable to mount a serious campaign like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, but a governor coming off a landslide reelection victory in 2014, who already enjoys national name recognition and a reputation as a progressive and an innovator, has experience balancing budgets and navigating national disasters, and is chief executive of a state thats size and diversity outstrips that of most countries. Imagine also that governor had served two terms as mayor of one of the countrys poorest and most crime-ridden cities, where he was viewed as one of the best chief executives in that citys rocky history, before being elected attorney general and then governor of his state.

Jerry Brown is likely going to eschew a fourth campaign for the presidency because he would be 78 by Election Day 2016. That decision would mean that Mr. Brown is one of the most successful politicians in American history never to have been president. Assuming he is reelected in November polls show him leading by more than 20 points Mr. Brown will have won statewide election seven times, including four terms as governor. In October of 2013, hebecame the longest serving governor in the history of the most populous state in the U.S. Including his two terms as mayor of Oakland, Mr. Brown has run for office in California nine times and won every time but one, losing a senate race to Pete Wilson in 1982.

Mr. Browns personal history is even more intriguing and at times has overshadowed his political career. As a young man, he attended a Jesuit seminary before deciding he was more suited to the family business than to the cloth. Mr. Browns father, Pat Brown, was a popular governor of California who served two terms from 1959-1966. In the 1950s, many thought the senior Brown, not John F. Kennedy, would be the first Catholic president of the U.S. The first Governor Brown was the man who beat Richard Nixon in the 1962 governors race in the Golden State, leading to the famous post-election press conference in which the future president promised the American people they wont have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. Four years later Pat Brown was thrown out of office by the voters in favor of another extraordinarily gifted California politician, Ronald Reagan. Politics runs deep in the Brown family. Jerrys sister, Kathleen Brown, was the California treasurer in the early 1990s and the Democratic nominee for governor in 1994.

Mr.Brown, however, was never viewed as an ordinary politician. Outside of California, the younger Governor Brown was seen by many as the hippie governor from the left coast full of unusual ideas. Inside California, Mr. Brown just kept winning electionswith acareer and reputation thattranscended 1970s politics. He became almost a stand-in for how the eastern establishment viewed California at that time. Mr. Brown was also immortalized by the seminal San Francisco punk rock band the Dead Kennedys. In their punk anthem California Uber Alles, a song that eerily foreshadows some of the culture wars of the early 21st century, the Dead Kennedys warned of a dsytopic hippie California led by FhrerJerry Brown whose aura smiles and never frowns, the suede denim secret police, and zen fascists who would come for your uncool niece, and make sure that your kids will meditate in school.

The central dialectic of Mr. Browns life has been that his spiritual quests, openness to new ideas and intellectual curiosity have coexisted with extraordinary political skills and instincts. Chuck McFadden, author of Trailblazer, a 2013 biography of Mr. Brown, sums up this duality well: Jerry Brown is a guy who can go to a Zen retreat in Big Sur and in the car on the way home, plot the brutal political downfall of a rival. He is at the same time an idealist and an immensely pragmatic and knowledgeable politician.He has an uncanny ability, Mr.McFadden continues, to understand the psyche of voters. He is really attuned more than any other politician Ive ever met. He has an above and beyond ability to unlock voters minds. Charles Fracchia, a well known San Francisco historian and author, who first met Brown when they were attending different Bay Area Catholic High Schools in 1951, and later studied at Jesuit seminary with Brown beginning in 1956, describes the same phenomenon. Jerry is kind of detached and removed. Platos idea of the philosopher king fits closely to JerryHe also know where the bodies are buried and what to do and what not to do.

A related paradox of Mr. Brown is that while his reputation outside of California is informed heavily by his exploration of Zen Buddhism and dalliance with new age philosophies, those who know Mr. Brown best understand his deepest intellectual and spiritual roots are in Jesuit teachings. Mr. Fracchia, who still remembers the day he picked up Mr. Brown at seminary when the latter decided to leave the Jesuits, stresses the tremendous imprint the Jesuits gave us, and described a recent phone call from the governor who wanted to discuss books he was reading on the third century Christian saints Felicity and Perpetua and asks How many governors, or even academics, read about early Christian subjects like that?

Mr.Brown, who is now 76 years old, has had such an extraordinary career, that if you divided his career in half, from 1966-1992 and from 1998-2014, you would have two very formidable politicians. The early Jerry Brown was Californias Secretary of State for one term before serving two terms as governor, winning election in 1974 and getting reelected in 1978. During this time he also launched unsuccessful presidential campaigns in 1976, 1980 and 1992. Over the course of his three bids for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Brown ran against almost every major Democratic candidate after Lyndon Johnson and before Barack Obama. His primary opponents included George Wallace, Jimmy Carter, Hubert Humphrey andBillClinton. Mr. Brown never won the Democratic nomination, but did well in the late primaries in 1976 and came somewhat close to upsetting the heavily favored Mr. Clinton in an often bitter 1992 campaign, finishing second in overall proportion of the primary vote both years. After the 1992 primary, most assumed Mr. Brown would continue to follow his own unique path but never be a relevant political figure again. The story did not turn out quite that way.

As Californias governor in the 70s, Mr. Brown, a native of San Francisco, then considered a bastion of radicalism, was known for crazy ideas like treating gay people decently and conserving natural resources. He cultivated this image by doing wacky things like eschewing formality, refusing to live in the governors mansion, being driven around in an ordinary Plymouth sedan, dating Linda Rondstadt, a popular singer of the era, discussing things like energy conservation, and legalizing alternative medicine. Mr. Brown earned the nickname Governor Moonbeam during those years. The name was first given to him by the Chicago columnist Mike Royko largely because Mr.Brown had the bizarre idea that people should use satellite technology to communicate with each other. To his credit, Mr. Royko later apologized for ridiculingMr. Brown, noting that, ultimately, Governor Moonbeam proved to beright.

Although Governor Brown became a national figure during this period, his first eight years in the officewere not entirely successful. A powerful legislature often blocked hismore ambitious proposals, making many of his best ideas difficult to translate into policy. Even then, however, Governor Brown was a social progressive, who appointed diverse supporters including Latinos, Asians and LGBT Californians to influential positions while also remaining a fiscal conservative. Ted Lempert, a lecturer in California politics at UC Berkeley and a member of the California assembly between Governor Browns terms, described his first term as, Back then the positive view was ahead of his time. More realistic view (was) not organized, bad relationships with the legislature. Overall, voters were sufficiently unimpressed with those eight years that they did not elect Governor Brown to the Senate in 1982, a year that nationally was otherwise a good one for the Democratic Party.

After losing that Senate race, Mr. Browns political life seemed to be if not over, than at least in crisis. Rather than immediately get back into politics, Mr.Brown spent several years of spiritual exploration including time in Japan studying Zen Buddhism and a stint in Calcutta helping Mother Teresa serve the poor. Those years only confirmed the views of many, particularly outside of Mr. Browns northern California base, that the man was slightly nutty. His return to politics in time to run for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992 dissuaded few of this notion.

Continued here:
Jerry Brown in the 21st Century