With Jerry Brown moving inexorably toward a profoundly boring walkover win in the Democratic primary for governor, desperate political reporters are making the rounds of would-be candidates, shouting their traditional war cry:
“Why don’t you and him fight?”
The latest plea comes from Dan Weintraub of the New York Times, a former Sacramento Bee columnist who should know better. He’s pumping up former state Controller Steve Westly as someone with “a forward looking centrist background” who might be the Democrat “best positioned for a general election campaign.”
Not only that, the story added, Westly could “combine money, experience, high-tech roots and relative youth” into a package that could keep the 71-year-old Brown out of the November election.
Weintraub even got the former eBay executive to channel Sen. Dianne Feinstein by saying that “anything is possible,” in the race for governor, although he plans to support Brown.
A couple of facts can cut through all the heavy breathing. Remember, this is the same Steve Westly who spent $35 million of his own cash to lose the 2006 primary for governor to Phil Angelides, who’s never been known as the reincarnation of Franklin Roosevelt.
Brown is far better known than Angelides among rank-and-file Democrats, so Westly would be looking at writing an even bigger check for a 2010 race.
Second, Westly already has thought seriously about a 2010 run for governor. At last year’s state Democratic convention in San Jose, when potential gubernatorial candidates filled the speaker list, Westly was quietly telling reporters that the race ultimately would come down to him and Brown. He was right about Brown but Westly hasn’t jumped in.
No one gets as far as Westly has in the political world without being ambitious, which isn’t a bad thing. But successful politicians are generally realistic politicians. Any run against Brown is going to be a very expensive, mega-longshot campaign, which is not the sort of contest relatively young, forward-thinking politicians want on their resumes.
So unless the attorney general screws up and lets his would-be competitors sniff blood in the water, Brown is likely to continue to have the primary field to himself.
Which brings a second concern, most recently articulated by the team over at the Calbuzz blog: If Jerry’s going to run, he absolutely, positively needs the kind of professional support available – at a price – from the legion of currently unemployed Democratic political consultants.
“It’s well past time for him to hire a cadre of political professionals to manage and focus his scattershot un-campaign for governor,” the Calbuzz boys argue. Since Brown can’t beat GOP front-runner Meg Whitman in fund-raising, “he needs to beat her on message and tight campaign organization.”
That feeling is echoed by Steve Maviglio, a, ahem, Democratic political consultant.
The dual ruckuses surrounding the AG’s handling (or unhandling) of the ACORN case and his press aide’s taping of conversations with reporters “is giving a lot of Democrats reason to worry he’s not ready for prime time,” Maviglio told the San Francisco Chronicle. The cases “should be a wake-up call that he can’t continue to run his campaign out of his basement.”
Let’s ignore for now any suggestion that there’s a hint of sour grapes in consultants’ complaints that Brown hasn’t hired a crack team of consultants at, let’s say, around $20,000 a month or so each.
Let’s also stipulate that the former governor marches to the beat of his own drummer and has never been known as a detail guy. Having a pro nearby to deal with the essential nuts and bolts of a statewide campaign and remind Brown that he needs to translate his philosophical musings into real programs and words that stir the voters will be a necessity for the fall campaign.
(Convincing Brown to listen to that person, though …)
But it’s worth remembering that high-priced political guns for hire don’t necessarily translate into election day victory. If they did, Whitman already would be pricing Sacramento real estate, since she’s seemingly cornered the market available GOP consultant at a monthly cost of better than $250,000 (and that was before Mike Murphy came aboard).
And despite concerns about Brown’s old-school campaign tactics, he’s managed to clear the primary field of a horde of ambitious Democrats who, much as they would love to be governor, just don’t see any way they can beat the attorney general.
Besides his nearly 100 percent name ID, Brown’s also using a lifetime of political connections to raise millions in campaign funds without have to burn that cash in a primary.
Does that mean he’s the next governor? Nope. But as long as he raise money while campaigning on the cheap, keep his poll numbers respectable and contemplate the cheery possibility of watching a money-burning GOP primary battle, Brown doesn’t have a lot of reasons to do anything differently.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.