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Yahoo!Jerry Brown chatted with several hundred of his closest friends in the driveway of the old Governor’s Mansion, enjoying the soft, blossom-scented air of a spring Saturday evening in Sacramento.
Nearby, a long line of Brown-for-governor supporters, mostly middle-aged, politely waited for a tour of the historic mansion. Others, festooned with buttons from campaigns past, gawked at a 1974 blue Plymouth, the iconic image of Brown’s first stint as California chief executive that had been towed here from a museum for the event.
A few hours later, a couple miles away, several thousand twenty-somethings feted Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor and wannabe governor, at a way cool block party in the city’s Lavender District. The Haitian hip-hop mogul Wyclef Jean staged a throbbing-beat free concert, as Newsom fans danced in the street and mobbed the gay bars.
Capitol Letters
The two events, during last weekend’s California Democratic Party convention, spoke volumes about the state of play as spring training season got underway in the 2010 primary campaign for governor.
Attorney General Brown, 71, is seeking to reclaim the office he first won as a 36-year-old wunderkind in 1974. As his party’s front-runner, Brown not only commands a loyal following among traditional Democrats but also carries plenty of political baggage. The 41-year-old Newsom, meanwhile, is positioning himself as the Obama-like, hip alternative to Brown, telling delegates the party must avoid “a stroll down memory lane” in picking a nominee.
A third contender, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, was MIA, canceling a scheduled convention appearance at the last minute, purportedly because of “crisis” budget talks, but more likely because he was about to be out-shown and out-organized by Newsom, as the two compete to emerge as chief foil to Brown.
Despite his years, Brown hasn’t lost much off the fastball, and remains the smartest guy in the room amid all Newsom’s talk about “new ideas.” Trim, ascetic, and buzz-cut, Brown looked bemused when I asked about the Newsom camp sniping about his age, a line of attack he dismissed as “meaningless.”
“Is their premise that my opponents think faster than me?” he said, all Zen-like. “Do they want to challenge me to a timed multiple-choice test?”
S.B. SHOUT-OUTS: Amid the state politicking, two local Democratic heroes earned special convention recognition:
Chrissy Elles, a fourth-year UCSB student, was honored as Woman of the Year at a gala tossed by the California Young Democrats and the California College Democrats. The Gaucho chapter of Campus Democrats, led by Elles, was also honored for registering more than 12,000 voters in 2008, most of any college in the nation.
“The number of California Young Democrats has exploded in the last year,” Elles said. “With Obama in the White House, everyone is very excited — instead of students feeling like we can’t do anything, they want to get involved.”
Among the 800 guests at the celebration was Susan Jordan, enviro and Democratic hopeful for the 35th Assembly District seat, whom I bumped into at Newsom’s Saturday-night bash: “It was very inspiring to see so many young people engaged and motivated to participate in the political process,” she said.
Back at the convention, Daraka Larimore-Hall, chair of Santa Barbara County’s Democratic central committee, was elected vice-chair of the state party’s big Labor Caucus.
It was an interesting weekend to win the job, because leaders of several of the state’s largest unions clashed on the convention floor over the May 19 special election ballot propositions.
The biggest fight was over Proposition 1A, negotiated by Governor Arnold and Democratic legislative leaders as part of a budget-balancing package; it would put spending restrictions in place while extending $16 billion in tax increases approved as part of the deal.
The powerful California Teachers Association, which has donated several million bucks to the Yes-on-1A effort, backs it because passage would set the stage for $9 billion in education cuts to be repaid to schools in the future. But two other key labor groups, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, oppose it because it could make permanent some cuts affecting wages and benefits; this group prevailed, blocking the 60-percent vote needed to endorse 1A.
“The question everyone is struggling with is whether it’s worse if [the props] pass or fail,” said Larimore-Hall, since Schwarzenegger and lawmakers would have to redraft a budget deal if several measures lose. “But everyone on the progressive side hates these propositions because they’re all punches in the gut for our priorities.”
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