American Masters

-So, it's like, look, I was -- I was reading the transcript from when we last spoke.

-Yeah.

-And I was trying really hard.

-Yeah.

-And you were... -Well, trying to do what, though?

If I understand it, I can respond, but... -Let Jerry speak!

Let Jerry speak!

-Yeah, I'm trying to get you to... -What?

-...explain who you are.

-Well, that -- that -- that's -- I find that kind of a non-question, you know?

-I know.

-So, I don't know what it means.

-Well, how would you describe yourself?

-I wouldn't!

I wouldn't!

-Governor, Governor, Governor.

-So, but what are you trying to get at?

What -- What -- You wanted to know something about something, but then I can respond to it, but... -Just -- Just -- Just -- Just help me for these two hours that neither of us rea-- -Yeah, I'm trying to help you, but you have to have a real event.

-So, just describe yourself!

-There's no -- there's no kind of "who" existing in abstraction, so it's always doing something or being somewhere.

-Just describe yourself.

-No, I can't do that.

-Back up!

Back up!

-Wedge!

Wedge!

-Who is that?

-Governor Brown!

-Jerry's great strength is that he is willing, sometimes eager, to take the path not taken by others.

-Give us a little elbow room, guys!

-Yeah.

We're gonna do it right here where he -- I'm in place.

I don't have a camera!

NBC?

-Anybody who wants, go!

-I need an NBC camera!

-Jerry used to call it "The art of the possible."

That's what politics is.

What is it possible to do?

How far can you get?

How much suffering can you alleviate?

-Uh, yeah.

I hope you can hear me.

You probably can't see me, but maybe you can hear me.

-I can't hear you.

-So many times in history, the right person arrives at the right time and saves us.

-Democratic headquarters in the city of San Francisco, by now a deserted headquarters.

The returns are in, the election is over, and the Governor-elect of the State of California is Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, till now our Attorney General, and I guess I'll have to get used to that new appellation of "Governor," Pat.

-Well, they've never called me "General," so I don't know whether they'll ever call me Governor, either.

Every-- Everyone, even the janitors, the elevator operators, and everyone, all call me Pat in the state building, and I think they'll continue to do that in Sacramento, too.

-In East Coast circles of elite opinion, California is often still seen as the land of fruits and nuts.

And what people miss about California, unless they come and experience it firsthand, is that California is incipiently America.

For the past 60, 70, 80 years, at least, the things that happened, and eventually wash over the rest of the country, tend to start here in California.

Pop culture.

The environmental movement.

Politics.

-California, by virtue of its size, is such an important factor in what happens in national policy, and the Browns are the closest thing that we have to a West Coast political dynasty.

[ Explosion in distance ] -Pat Brown was really the father of modern California -- the creator of the Cal State system, the freeway infrastructure, the water projects, and so on.

So it was a huge legacy for Jerry to try to live up to.

-I was 20, 21, when my father was governor.

So, in that sense, I got to see the governorship, not early in life but early in my adulthood.

-This was a kid who grew up in the house of a politician, where everybody who came through the door wanted something.

He got a very deep, visceral education about how things worked, and I think that sort of set his own moral compass.

-From an early age, I was interested in Heaven, Hell, the saints, devils, whatever you want to call it.

That world that we learned as children, through our Catholic training and ultimately Catholic school, that always interested me.

-There was never a light touch with Jerry.

He was a disrupter from the beginning.

When he turned to religion, he became very compulsive and intensely interested and absorbed in that.

And then, of course, not just to be religious and be devout, he decided he wanted to go to the seminary.

-When you think about what's important to do in life, you know, you live and marry, you have kids, you make money, you die.

So what's that all about?

But in religion, the claim is that you're going to deal with the most important things.

Eternity, salvation, damnation -- these are really big, big topics!

We might call it a medieval kind of life, where no television, no radio, no magazines, no newspapers, only the Bible, working, silence, prayer, meditation.

My father, he probably didn't like it 'cause he was active.

He was a go-getter.

He could not envision a 15-year training program with a lot of silence, a lot of study, and not a lot of action.

-After two years in the seminary, you take your vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and Jerry's mother always said that she thought the one he would have difficulty obeying was obedience.

-In order for you to follow a spiritual path, it has to grab you.

It has to be something that you're caught by, that you're engaged in.

And that progressively diminished.

And so, at some point, it became obvious that it was time to go on another path, which is what I did.

-Jerry Brown talks about having heard about the places where Ginsberg wrote "Howl" and going to hang out there and listening to jazz.

-Leaving the seminary and going to Berkeley and encountering these -- a totally different world of ideas, and living at the International House, that's exciting.

After I went to Yale Law School, I studied for the bar in Sacramento at the Governor's Mansion.

I was just looking at law books, falling asleep, it's so tedious.

And then I walked down the stairs.

I saw my father, and I could hear him.

They were talking about who's gonna run for governor, Pat Brown or the Speaker, Jess Unruh.

I found that very exciting.

There was a vitality, an intensity, maybe like watching an exciting movie, but it wasn't a movie.

It was a reality that was imaginable for me to be a part of.

[ Crowd cheering ] -The manner in which the other team has been campaigning, it's time that some people were reminded that actors are people.

-To me, it's rather, uh, unbelievable that a person that has had no governmental experience of any kind, nature, or description, would be nominee of a great political party.

But the polls seem to indicate that he's, uh -- that he's running well ahead and everybody seems to think he will, but I'm not so sure myself.

-Today, in the state's new $85,000 press conference room, he said that he is running partly because of Ronald Reagan.

-I would say that, uh -- that the thought of a -- of a Goldwater Republican leading this state does frighten me and did play a part in my decision to run again, yes.

It looks now, at this early days, like Mr. Reagan has won this campaign.

[ Cheering ] -We want Reagan!

We want Reagan!

We want Reagan!

We want Reagan!

We want Reagan!

-Yes, sir, how about that election?

California's back to a two-party system.

Yes, sir.

[ Applause ] The Democrats and the Screen Actors Guild.

[ Laughter and applause ] It's the biggest victory for an actor since Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea.

[ Laughter ] When Ronny heard he was elected governor, he was thrilled.

He said, "Good.

Now, when do I get the script?"

[ Laughter ] [ Applause ] -Reagan's defeat of Jerry's father, Pat, was a dramatic shift for Democrats in California.

-It meant that Jerry and Kathleen were the only members of the next generation who could return the Brown family to the rightful place in the state's legacy.

And I'm sure that had to have weighed very heavily on him.

-Initially, I was not that interested in politics, and I was more interested in a personal life and personal quest for those things that I thought were important.

But through watching him, I learned the skills and also the possibility of political action, of doing something not just for yourself but in cooperation with other people.

-At some point in his life, he decided to run for office, knowing everything that that meant by having grown up in the house of a governor and thinking that he could do it differently.

-I met Jerry 1969.

His office was a few blocks from mine, and he would come by.

I helped him out with some press releases, and at some time in the fall, he asked me if I'd consider coming in to manage his campaign for statewide office.

At that time, Ronald Reagan was re-elected, second term.

Jerry was the only Democrat to win statewide office.

-That I will both well and faithfully discharge... -...the duties upon which I am about to enter.

-...the duties upon which I am about to enter.

-The first time I heard of Jerry Brown was when he was, I think, Secretary of State.

Jerry was one of those casual kind of characters, very young, which I said to myself, "Wow!

This is so different than in Europe!"

Because in Europe, all the politicians, you have to be kind of like at least 50 years old to be believable, that you have the wisdom and the knowledge of things.

I mean, here we have Ronald Reagan who is one of the oldest politicians at the time, and here we have one of the youngest politicians, all at the same time, same state.

-Politically, things had been more in the Republican's corner.

You know, California had had a Republican governor and administration for eight years.

But then came Watergate.

-Just after Watergate, Nixon resigns.

Ford gives him a pardon.

So you have a lot of skepticism about the integrity of government, and compounded, of course, by the protracted Vietnam War and the failure and the frustration and the divisions the Vietnam War created.

So there had to be more modesty, I would even say humility, on the part of leadership because the currency of leaders was very devalued.

-I started talking to Jerry a little bit about thinking of running for Governor in '74.

And he wasn't averse to the idea, but he wasn't anxious.

Now, Pat Brown, his father, was adamant against it.

Pat Brown took me out to breakfast one day at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel and told me about how Jerry couldn't win.

"No one that young can win!

You can't win!

Jerry, you're --" And he said, "Tom, you're destroying my son's career!

And you're destroying your career!"

Said, "You'll never recover!

Neither one of you!"

-Jerry is like a decidedly personal reaction, as a son often is.

He's not a hail-fellow-well-met.

There's something ascetic about him.

He didn't care about any of the accoutrements of power.

He wanted to do things.

-Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor.

It's a decision that I've arrived at after many months of reflection.

The first obligation of the state government is to develop human potential.

And let's talk about the natural environment, the natural ecology, but while we do, don't forget human ecology and the human environment.

Now, what we face today is a human crisis because hundreds of thousands of people in this country are being relegated to the backwaters of our society because they're not given the education they need.

-I literally looked his name up in the phone book, for his campaign office.

[ Laughs ] And I just showed up as a volunteer, and that's how I started working with Jerry Brown.

-It was exciting because you felt this, like, optimism and this new world that we were gonna create as young people.

It was about investing in this "new spirit," I think, was the logo of the campaign, that we were -- we needed a new spirit, and Jerry was it.

-I think you want somebody who's tough enough and strong enough and willing enough to bring in that diversity.

We have a diversity in this state.

We have a lot of different points of view.

You have an environmentalist that sees one point of view, you have a developer that sees another.

We have to bring these people together.

Obviously, I was attracted to the limelight, attracted to the notoriety and all the engrossing activities.

It was different.

It was new.

-We had a small campaign and didn't have the kind of money that people have today.

We had a very tough primary fight against the assembly Speaker, the mayor of San Francisco.

I mean, these were people with more experience in government than Jerry Brown had.

-He has many candidates running against him, very prominent leaders in the Democratic Party, and they didn't quite have his understanding of where things were politically in the state, and, in fact, in the nation.

-If your name were, say, Edmund G. Green Jr., would you be here today?

-Now, he talks about the fact that I, in a veiled reference, that my father was governor and I have the same name.

Obviously, that has an impact in this election and my whole life!

But also the fact that Ronald Reagan ran in a landslide had something to do with his being elected.

And the fact that Reinecke was indicted when he was ahead in the polls had something to do with his election!

So, let's not try to sift out why he's elected or why I'm elected.

Let's talk about the issues.

[ Applause ] -Mr. Brown, there's many questions that haven't been answered yet, and a lot of people would like to ask -- -Are you working in the Flournoy campaign?

-No, I'm not.

I'm a student here.

-Good, okay.

-Could you explain to me why -- -You just have that -- you have that glint in your eye that I... -Well, I'm dissatisfied!

[ Laughter ] Can you explain to me why the... -And we still have no returns from Los Angeles County, which, of course, is the largest county in California, and so, we cannot really get an accurate reading on what is going to be happening in that race between Jerry Brown, the son of a former Democratic Governor of California, and Houston Flournoy, the state controller.

They're in a contest to succeed Governor Ronald Reagan, who has been the Republican Governor there for eight years now.

At the Flournoy headquarters in Los Angeles is Gail Christian.

Gail?

-Flournoy seems to be doing fairly well in the suburbs.

He seems to be picking up a lot of the higher-income votes.

-NBC's experts have decided that, at this moment, still, the race between Brown and Flournoy is too close to call, and so they have decided not yet to project the winner.

-Why don't we look at the California board now, just to show you what we have?

There's California, with 18% of the precincts in, Houston Flournoy, uh, with 48% of the vote, and Edmund G. Brown, Jr. with 52% of the vote.

-I've been looking at the returns.

I've been watching television, watching the wire services, and it's pretty obvious to me that you got a Democratic governor in 1975!

[ Cheers and applause ] Now, you see, some people think that -- some people think I got here because of my father.

It's actually because of my mother.

[ Laughter, cheers, applause ] Now, where is my father?

Is he standing be-- I want him to come forward.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Ah, Governor, would you tell us, how much of a role did you play in Jerry's victory tonight?

-I didn't play very much of a role.

I think that, uh -- that 23 years in public life and the eight years of governorship helped him get started.

I think that, uh, if his name was Smith or Jones or something, he probably wouldn't have gotten the start that he did.

But after he got into it, this was a tough competition.

This was Major League politics, and I think that he grew, and I think that there's potential greatness in my son.

-Jerry Brown would be a far different governor than was his father, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Sr., when he served for eight years in California.

Jerry Brown is disdainful of party machinery, as one example, and certainly we'll be hearing more about Jerry Brown, and often.

-The machinery of government runs on, and the moves to be made by a governor are relatively limited.

And when you realize you can have a Republican governor or a Democratic governor, depending upon which one, the script is written, and all you have to do is perform it.

I wanted to think, "What could I do as governor that, if I weren't there, would not be done?"

What are we -- What are we doing here?

Who stands behind us?

Today, I signed my first executive order requiring every department of the state of California to cooperate with local government and private business and develop effective strategies to implement the job programs that have been put into law, both under Nixon and under our present president.

We have the money.

It's shocking when we can't put it to work.

At the age of 36, to be elected Governor of California was very exciting.

I don't know whether people think we just do this because we're doing good for the world.

It's a very personal, fulfilling, exciting thing.

-One of his first acts was to cut down the governor's personal staff.

And he refused a raise for himself.

He sold the governor's executive jet and travels commercially.

He sends back all the perks and gifts that pour into a governor's office, even the lifetime pass to Disneyland that goes with the job.

-Jerry says to me, "I don't want a limo.

Don't have them order a limousine for me.

Just have them take out of the motor pool a car they would make available to a legislator or a member of the cabinet."

So, we're walking out of the legislature, walking across Capital Park, and there's one car waiting, and it's powder blue.

Not royal blue, powder blue!

So he looks at me and he says, he says, "Gray, is that my car?"

And I said, "I'm afraid it is."

-Three days after his inauguration, the new governor introduced his cabinet and called it the best in the history of California.

-Most of the people were in their 30s, maybe one or two in their 40s, and it was exciting!

-Jacques Barzaghi was certainly the most unusual political strategist I ever ran across in 40 years of writing about politics.

My New York Times colleague Alessandra Stanley wrote a profile of him in which she described him as "the man who puts the frost on the California flake."

-Jacques was Jerry's street smarts.

There was something still boyish and wide open about him.

And Jacques was the guy who'd grab his elbow and pull him in a doorway in a riot.

-There's an excitement to those early years in the '70s.

You know, he did a lot of things that changed the literal face of what government looks like.

-The cabinet was half women or people of color, first gay judge.

It was for the people by the people, and that was real.

-Governor, you were indicating that government, in itself, might be a barrier for women entering it.

What can you do to break that barrier?

-By putting women in the significant boards, the, uh, Board of Governors as the lawyers, the quality board for the doctors, the contractors board, the athletic commission, the contractors board, the funeral board, the architecture board.

These are the commissions that have the power to decide who becomes a professional and who is excluded and what the professional standards are.

-The way that he would approach a problem was just by continuing to dig and dig until he felt he knew the right answer.

-What I learned was, don't make the first meeting in the morning too interesting, 'cause if it's interesting, it's gonna go on all day.

Wherever I left him is where I would find him when I came back, whether it was an hour or a week, because he was so, um, absorbed by the task at hand that he would stay at it until some external force, usually me or someone else, came into the room and told him he had to go out and do something else.

-He did kind of lock himself into the governor's office.

He lived across the street on a mattress.

He was the monk.

He was still, you know, the monk.

-How often do you want to meet?

-Why this format here?

-Why not?

I like to -- I get -- You know, it gets boring always doing it the same way, doesn't it?

I mean, don't you like to change what you do?

Woodrow Wilson started the press conference, but he said that -- whatever he said was not to be quoted but could only be used as guidance.

[ Laughter ] And then, as the press began to ask him embarrassing questions about his daughters, he said that he would thrash them, and finally gave it up!

And never had news conferences anymore!

-Do you feel that way?

-No!

I'm just kind of getting to enjoy them.

-Well, then why did you bring that up?

[ Laughter ] -Because I thought the whole thing ought to be put in historical perspective.

-He's very honest with the press.

He'll just say things that no one else would say.

And Gerald Ford had become president, and Jerry's over in San Francisco, his first meeting with Gerald Ford.

Afterwards, he comes out and someone says, "So, Governor, the new President, uh, can you give us your impressions?"

And he said, "Well, I went in with low expectations, and they were fulfilled."

I cringed.

But, uh, that's Jerry.

-Are you gonna be -- Uh, what do you do now?

Are you... What's the next step?

-Right now, as Jerry probably knows, we've been working like hell with the staff that we've got, trying to zero in on the error rate.

And know what's happened?

Error rate's going up.

-Why is that?

'Cause you found it, you mean?

This is one of the problems in this game!

If you work too hard, things get worse.

-That's exactly what's happening with it.

-The harder you swim upstream, the faster you go downstream.

So, it's a very strange world.

It's "Alice In Wonderland."

-There were other politicians, they're never at a loss.

Jerry's much more transparent, and his ideas come bursting out of him.

And there's something about that, you look at him, and you say, "Oh, yeah, this guy's not pretending."

-I think we ought to have someone on the Air Resources Board who knows something about smog, who wants to fight it, and wants to make sure that the air in this state is clean.

-Jerry Brown was more than just a little bit ahead of where most people in politics were.

He was ahead of where a lot of academics and activists were in making the connection between air pollution and the effect that this was all going to have on the climate.

He brought in a number of people who were interested in taking a much stronger line on behalf of the government.

-At least I think, right now, that we can have far more stringent standards for our 1977 models and still have substantially improved mileage in the automobiles.

-The whole habitat, the species, how the air, the rain, the poison, all that stuff, those are physical laws, and you just can't disobey them with impunity, so you gotta get on the side of nature.

-Reagan created the Air Resources Board because he hated pollution.

But when Jerry Brown became Governor, it's not just with the Air Resources Board but, "Here's what we need to do!

You got to have solar panels everywhere.

You got to have windmills everywhere.

We got to have renewable energy."

People, of course, in the '70s, said, "What is this guy talking about?"

-He got it.

He was listening to the science at the time, very early on in climate change, absolutely, and before anybody ever used the term.

-I've tried, very early on, to present ideas that, at the time, were not the conventional wisdom.

I talked about an era of limits, limits that were political, economic, and environmental.

Certainly, there have been books written about this, but it wasn't the normal politics not to promise more and more.

I think later events have validated that, and the era in which we will pass is one of great change.

And if I do anything, I think it's, uh, to understand change, to manage it, and to explain it to the people that have to live under it.

-I remember he once told me, he said, "Part of leadership is taking an idea that will naturally gravitate from sort of the periphery of society to the heart of society, and help move it from the periphery to the middle much faster."

And you do that by start-- by talking about that well before anyone else talks about it.

-There are so many contending impulses and thoughts running through his mind.

A deep moral reservoir that's in conflict with something that I don't fully understand, but the part of it that makes it the most valuable is that it's always in struggle with some moral, upright sense.

-The whole scene with agriculture in this country has been using minorities to produce the labor.

We really want to change the whole scene in agriculture.

We want to make farm workers as equal to every other worker in this country and as well respected.

-Jerry Brown.

[ Applause ] -Jerry was just elected governor, and the Farmworker Union was trying to build.

Cesar Chavez was facing great opposition, and Jerry was a central figure in bringing people together.

-Ever since the '30s, people have been trying to get a bill.

Franklin Roosevelt tried to get a farm labor bill.

We've got one.

-Twice a month, at 6:00, we would all stop what we were doing, and in would come Cesar Chavez, prominent growers, including the Farm Bureau, and each would have their own office.

And Jerry would shuttle from office to office, trying to knit together some legislation they can all get behind.

And that would go on until, you know, 10:00, 10:30 at night.

-Ayes, 63.

No's, 10.

The measure is passed.

-No other state in the country had, or has, ever passed one.

We're the only state.

-In the first six months of its existence, the Farm Labor Board, the first such panel in the nation, monitored 400 union elections.

The historic legislation has been hailed as one of Jerry Brown's major accomplishments as governor.

-Yeah, Jerry Brown has been very good to the farm workers.

He hasn't been perfect by a long shot, but he has, more than any other governor, recognized the needs of farm workers.

-Although his term of office is less than a year old, Governor Brown is scoring record approval at the polls, and the question is, how is he accomplishing this?

A question that vexes and fascinates professional political observers.

-He mused a little bit about running for president, but it never hit me as a -- anything that was imminent.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -So, Jerry, he says to me, "I want you to call over three people from the press, at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon."

So, after about six or seven hypothetical questions, someone asked him, "Well, are you running for president?"

He says, "I guess I am."

That was his announcement.

-Governor, do you see yourself as the last bastion to stop Carter?

-I don't try to define my objectives in terms of the opposition.

I'm representing a -- an alternative, a new generation of leadership for this country, and I want people to judge that on its own merits and -- and not, uh, as any effort to block anyone else.

Long shot?

Well, I wouldn't say that I've got it locked up yet.

[ Laughter ] -I -- [ Laughs ] -- thought that it was typical of how Jerry Brown operates.

-That night, Gray called me and said, "Mickey, would you come to Sacramento?

Jerry wants you to run his campaign."

I said, "His campaign for what?"

He was governor.

He says, "Campaign for president."

I said, "You're kidding."

-I thought Jimmy Carter -- I didn't think he was that strong, and he was just another governor, too, of a much smaller state.

So, I said, "Why not?

I think I have a chance.

What have I got to lose?"

So, I did.

They're gonna say, "You're not ready, you're too young.

What are you doing this for?"

But I've gotten in it because I really think the American people deserve a better choice.

And after a year of campaigning, these fellows on the trail have not produced much.

-We got a call from Jerry, basically, "I'm gonna run for president."

By the way, the Oregon primary was 11 days later and we weren't on the ballot."

-Another biblical, uh, text that goes something like -- that the laborer who enters the field at the eleventh hour is as worthy of hire as he who enters at the first hour.

And I'm coming at the eleventh hour, and I'd like a chance!

Will you give it to me?

-Jerry was a rock star.

He was like for real a rock star.

-For somebody who really liked to be in his own bubble and left alone, when we went out, people wanted to be close to that energy.

-You would just show up, and there was 20,000 people in Maryland at a rally, and, you know, celebrities that were flying on planes and being his spokespeople everywhere.

It was literally like we got lifted up.

-Let me present to you, my friend, Jerry Brown!

He was so new, he was so attractive as a candidate, following what we all experienced with the Kennedys.

Jerry was the next generation of that kind of a politician.

-I know what a very popular young man Governor Brown is, and I'm sure it will make it much more difficult for -- for me in California, but it won't deter me at all, and Governor Brown knows that no matter what he does, I'll be here.

-Pretty good.

How are you?

-Give 'em hell.

Give 'em hell.

-Though Brown acknowledges he has an uphill battle, he insists he's still a viable alternative as a presidential candidate.

After all, he says, he's the freshest of the fresh new faces.

Bettina Gregory, ABC News, with the Brown campaign in Providence, Rhode Island.

-He won in Maryland!

He won in Oregon, the largest write-in that's ever been recorded in that state!

And as Doonesbury says, "I think that's pretty good for winging it!"

[ Cheers and applause ] -The fact is, is that legally, there are less than 1,100 delegates who are obligated to vote for him.

That leaves all the other delegates open to persuasion.

This thing is a national phenomenon.

It makes sense to me to continue to move forward.

-In every primary where he and Carter were competing, Jerry won, but it was too late.

Carter had the delegates and, you know, we had our first taste of a national campaign.

It was exciting.

-So, the Brown campaign continues to, what appears to be, an inevitable conclusion, though, obviously, the Governor cannot afford to admit that at this time.

In the Governor's words, "Until the process is over, it's a bit premature to write the finale."

-I think we were in a universe that we were also alien to.

There is a machine, and you are not part of it, and it was very clear.

[ Cheers and applause ] -We want Brown!

We want Brown!

We want Brown!

We want Brown!

We want Brown!

We want Brown!

-The years ahead, we've got a lot of work to do.

I don't think it's going to be done in a hundred days or a thousand days.

It's a long, difficult struggle to live within our environment and work together and bring about justice.

I think Jimmy Carter can do that.

He's proved it to you, he's proved it to me, and I just want to be able to announce that the California delegation votes 278 votes for Mr. Carter, and we're on our way to bring this country back into the Democratic column!

Thank you very much!

[ Cheers and applause ] Was it impetuous?

Yes.

Might I followed my own advice of pausing?

I might have.

Might have been -- might have turned out better.

You do something, it's on television, people get excited, well, what do you do the next day?

What about the next day?

The next week, the next month, the next year?

-The Governor's been known for doing things in an unusual way.

His bid for another four years was leaked yesterday in a brief memo announcing that his top aide had resigned to run the re-election campaign.

Today, almost as an afterthought, he made it official.

-It's no secret.

I'm going to seek another term as governor of California.

The last 3 1/2 years have provided an opportunity to build for the future, with respect to energy, jobs, schools, human rights.

This has been a state second to none.

-His running for president didn't help in the sense that it seemed like he abandoned California a bit.

So it looked as though the re-election could be a bit of a challenge.

-Jerry was a fairly unpopular first-term governor.

He had really stirred things up over appointments, over policies, and everybody was screaming for relief from the high property-tax increases, which were funding schools and all kinds of other things.

-Some of the people of California are mad as hell, and they aren't going to take it anymore.

The Pied Piper who leads them flutes a tune with words like, "Cut taxes by 57%."

His name is Howard Jarvis.

He and another retired businessman lead a statewide campaign calling California's tax system "grand felony theft."

-What Proposition 13 did is, it locked the property tax in at 1% of -- of the value, and it didn't trigger an increase until the property sold.

It caught fire and there was no stopping that train.

That train left the station, and Democrats and Republicans, governors, and everybody responsible in Sacramento, did not see that train coming, and they got run over by it.

-When 13 came along, I certainly, for a moment, thought, "Well, maybe I should support it."

But, of course, all my allies, and many of the things that I strongly believe in, are supported by the property tax.

And so, this -- the way it was framed in Prop 13, it was way overkill.

It's gonna take money from people working in convalescent homes.

It's gonna take money from people who are trying to put out fires, people who are trying to protect the city, people who are working in schools.

And it's gonna give to the telephone company, it's gonna give to Standard Oil, and 10 other large companies a $431 million tax break.

And I don't think they need it when their profits are double what they are anywhere else in the country and when the needs of this state are so great.

That's why I'm for Proposition 8 and against 13.

-The '78 campaign was really intense.

He could have lost.

And that's when he had to change sides on Prop 13.

-Today I hear the voters want more of that, and they want that spirit of frugality from Sacramento to San Diego to the Oregon border, and I will do my best to carry it out.

When it passed, it's not just another vote where some candidate is elected.

This was an alteration of the California Constitution, which, as a governor, I take an oath to uphold.

So, this is the Constitution, and it's my job to enforce it, which I did.

So, it wasn't about compromise.

It was just "is."

This is what -- This is the task now.

-We have districts that will have to cut back at least 60%, some 50%.

The average is 35%.

Whenever you make those kind of cutbacks in education, which is people-dominated -- 80% of -- of the schools' expenditure is in personnel.

Now, when you have to make those drastic cutbacks, you're not talking about giving up paper clips and scratch paper and pencils.

You're talking about people.

-The concerned county leaders want state income taxes to be used to pay for health and welfare programs now supported by the soon-to-be slashed property tax.

But Governor Brown warned them, Proposition 13 means more than a financing shift.

It means an era of reduced services.

-It is a vote to cut back, to be more lean, to be more frugal, to be more thoughtful about what government does with people.

-That's, I would say, when Jerry Brown "The New Spirit" became a "politician."

And, um, it was... ...um, heartbreaking for him.

-He was always a politician.

I mean he'd grown up watching his father.

He knew!

He got it.

He got it from a very early age.

Didn't mean he liked it, didn't mean he approved of it, but he understood it.

-But is there something different here?

Is there a new Jerry Brown?

At 40, he says of himself, "I'm in passage."

In '74, Brown displayed an open animosity toward the former Governor of California, Pat Brown.

But this year he seems to have changed.

Jerry Brown has invited his father into his campaign.

-Any politician that's successful has to work with the zeitgeist of his time.

Otherwise, you can't even be heard.

What are you supposed to do, say "no"?

And so, I dealt with it.

And here's the paradox of politics.

Because we got a problem, because I got to solve it -- 'cause who else was gonna solve it except the governor -- then I got all the notoriety for that.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -We're at The Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, and this is Brown headquarters, and the few people who have gathered here so far have been told to move toward the television sets now, because what is expected to happen -- the polls just closed a minute or two ago -- what is expected to happen within the next couple of minutes... [ Cheering ] And apparently, it has happened.

Is that someone has made the first projection that their man, Governor Jerry Brown, is going to be the winner.

-These guys do what they need to do to win, and that's why they win.

His father did the same.

You know, he learned at his father's knee, he learned about politics, and, uh, you know, he, you know, he was a very, very effective campaigner, very effective campaigner and politician and very good at his, uh, at his craft.

-I think we ought to rethink what it is we're trying to do because the one thing everybody understands is that we need money, and the people in the cities come to the state and they want money, and the people in the state get on an airplane and they go back to Washington, and they get more money.

I think we get a lot further if we accept the limits instead of trying in some Faustian way to reach for the moon or reach for the end of the rainbow and fail because it's an impossible task to begin with.

-Democratic legislators were so turned off by his posture on simple things like how you raise money, and he did not glad-hand and cultivate.

And so, it was not a good mix.

-Well, these things are often as much chemistry as they are, uh, legalistic language.

And I would just say that the chemistry of the situation was such that, when added to the adjustments offered and accepted, uh, the votes were arrived at.

-He's a quintessential California politician, as is Ronald Reagan.

They're flip sides of the same coin.

They're both masters of the media, uh, masters of the buzzword, masters of the 20-second summation of the world.

-Jerry Brown was overridden numerous times, on budget matters, on all sorts of things.

'Cause he had no sway, really, in the legislature.

He had no stature.

They thought he was this snot-nosed kid.

-This month invests $5 million in the practical application of satellite technology for communications and monitoring of our natural resources.

-We were spending millions of dollars a year on just telephone service for the state government.

He said, "Well, my God, we can launch a satellite and save money."

And Mike Royko, who was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, dubbed him "Governor Moonbeam."

-Royko meant it as a putdown, and Jerry, I'll just never forget, looking at me just with such vulnerability, saying, "You know, the first time I heard them call me Governor Moonbeam, I thought it was a compliment."

Because he thought it meant that he was an adventurous thinker.

-I didn't see it as any big deal.

I'm used to seeing, reading about, and, hopefully avoiding, scandal, problems, big screw-ups.

That's what brings down politicians on a regular basis.

So, I didn't put "Governor Moonbeam" in that category.

-Well, you're all over the front page of magazines, gossip magazines if you will.

It's become a national subject, if you will, Us magazine.

-I'm not unaware of that, but I think I can retain some private space, at least for a few years longer.

-Are you a confirmed bachelor?

-No.

-It hadn't been for the fact that I got to see him on TV every night, I'd have forgotten what he looked like.

So...

But he came back yesterday.

He's gonna make it all better now.

-It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows, but in this case, Brown and Ronstadt seem to represent the ultimate interaction between politics and show business.

-They were good for each other.

Two people that are in a rarefied universe find each other, and are just normal people together is so sweet.

-I think she lived in Malibu.

He was living in Laurel Canyon, splitting his time between Sacramento and Los Angeles and, you know, living in his apartment.

Just kind of added to the glamour around a kind of already glamorous governorship.

-California's Governor Jerry Brown is in the African nation of Kenya tonight to watch the wild animals, but everybody else seemed to be more interested in watching him and his companion, singer Linda Ronstadt.

Rumors say that they will get married with Mount Kilimanjaro in the background, but Brown says most of the rumors you hear are not true.

-As to rumors of any marriage while I was away, those were not true and I think were generally invented by some of the more enterprising members of the fourth estate.

-How is she as a travelling companion, sir?

[ Laughter ] -I'll never tell.

[ Laughter ] -Linda was terrific.

She and Jerry were very close.

I think ultimately maybe two stars couldn't exist in the same place.

-Gasoline shortages are spreading across the country.

Odd/Even service, gasoline lines, and closed gas stations are becoming increasingly common.

-When you went on your legendary African vacation, April the 6th, you were away 10 days.

The state was in trouble.

The oil shortage had hit.

First, why did you go away in that crisis?

And second, why didn't you act immediately?

-Well, I think I acted faster than anyone in the United States in the announcement of the Odd/Even Program that is now operating in California.

-I can tell you, it isn't working.

It's a fiasco.

-Jerry Brown, during his first term, probably created more political capital than any governor in any state.

There was no political prize that was outside his reach.

In the second term, he just squandered it all.

-The second term starts to feel really heavy, and Jerry's about freshness, he's about ideas and he's about making fresh things happen.

And maybe that culture is what encouraged him to run for president in '80.

-The times call out for discipline and provision.

Because I see neither, I offer myself as a candidate for the presidency.

[ Applause ] -Carter was not popular, so he saw blood in the water, and so, he jumped in and started running.

- I am Governor Jerry Brown My aura smiles and never frowns Soon I will be president -Well, in 1976, I ran in a few states and I won.

So, I thought, "Well, 1980, I have more experience, I've been a governor, this should be even easier.

-I don't know if he learned something in the '76 run.

If he did, he didn't apply it 'cause he got in late again.

We did not set up the structure.

We didn't even qualify to get delegates in New York, for instance, for the primary there.

-California Governor Jerry Brown's presidential campaign suffered a setback today when the New York State Board of Elections ruled that almost two thirds of Brown's signatural petitions were valid.

That action, which comes at the request of Kennedy supporters, takes Brown off the New York state March 25th primary ballot.

It also denied him any shot at a share of New York's 282 convention delegates.

-Look, I'm not going to psychoanalyze Jerry Brown.

I wasn't involved in those conversations, so I don't know why, what the -- what the theory was and what they could do to win.

-Realizing that you were up against a well-funded machine that had everything, and then you had Kennedy in the wings waiting to come in, so, it was... we were out of our depths.

-I ended up running Wisconsin.

It was his make-or-break state.

He had to win this.

There were crossover voters or whatnot.

And I think we were making some progress.

He did pretty well.

But he was looking for the moon shot.

And he talked Francis Ford Coppola into coming out and putting on a big rally.

[ Crowd cheering ] -Citizens, I speak to you today... [ No audible dialogue ] [ Crowd shouting ] -I was there watching it live.

Well, I was watching it on a TV monitor.

It was a technological disaster.

-Even the technologies of this age need some human assistance.

[ Crowd cheers ] I'm gonna to talk to you tonight about this country the way I see it.

-Sometimes I watch it just to get a really good laugh.

Because it was...

I was like, "Oh," I just was, "Oh, the campaign's over."

[ Laughs ] -So far, Jerry Brown has finished dead last in every race he's entered -- last in Iowa, last in Maine, and last in New Hampshire.

He has failed to win even one delegate.

The question is why?

Why is he faltering so badly now, after doing so well four years ago?

-This political business, I think in recent years, has become almost like a TV series.

When it's brand-new, and if it's good, it catches on and it goes to the top of the ratings overnight.

It's a big hit.

But it can wear out just as quickly.

-He won one delegate.

In Wisconsin he won one delegate, and that was the end of his campaign.

-It is obvious that the voters have spoken and have given their verdict on my 1980 campaign.

I must say, in retrospect, I underestimated the power of incumbency, the power of the sitting president.

And so, it was doomed from the beginning, but I didn't understand that.

So, that is where, uh, in retrospect, in reflecting on that, I come to the idea that you can have an idea, and you can be clear about it and certain about it, and completely wrong.

-Will you concede that your presidential ambitions in 1980, and to some extent in 1976, were, I guess, were responsible for a sharp drop in your popularity in California?

-Yes, I would.

-Ladies and gentlemen, the Governor of the State of California, the senate and assembly of... -Governor Brown has proposed to the legislature what he calls a responsible and fair state budget, a record $27 billion.

It is in fragile balance, a crapshoot some have called it, because it makes a number of assumptions that are not safe.

-Economists are divided in their forecasts, both for next year and succeeding years.

It may be that the economy next year will lift our revenue hopes, or it may dash them.

In the face of such uncertainty, I'm not going to recommend new taxes that might not be needed.

I didn't think a third term would make sense.

I thought of that early on, before even my second term.

People lose their edge, people get tired of you, you've had a lot of controversies.

I didn't fully grasp all the details, but more than eight years did not seem wise to me.

And, uh, I was thinking maybe of just not running for anything, but people that worked with me, they said, "No, you gotta run, you gotta be in office."

So, the Senate was the only logical place.

So, I was a little reluctant, but I finally decided, "Okay, let's run for the Senate."

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Jerry Brown really can't be second to anything or anybody.

After he's president, he will probably pursue the popeship, and from there some other place.

I think Jerry Brown sincerely believes that, uh, his kind of politics is what this nation needs and what the world needs in order to lead the world out of chaos into outer space or some other, uh, celestial area where things are beautiful.

I think that's what Jerry Brown envisions, and Jerry Brown has a holy mission headed in that direction.

-We are the state that gave the nation Ronald Reagan, and I think we ought to give them a second message that we can do better, that we want a full employment economy, we want jobs in our state, throughout the whole country.

[ Cheers and applause ] -I told him, I said, "Look, Jerry, I think you're making a big mistake and I think you're gonna regret it.

But you don't need my help anymore.

And, you know, call me if there's something I can do to help."

-His performance as a taxer and as a spender is far more in keeping with the unhappy traditions of the Congress which have put the United States in a position where we're having to work to bring down a deficit.

Certainly, his experience in Sacramento does not give confidence to the voters that he would be one of the leaders in cutting spending.

-I recognize that, after you've been in there eight years, I got a lot to work on.

I've made tough decisions.

I've stepped on toes.

I've made mistakes.

I acknowledge that.

If you don't do anything but cut ribbons, if you just, uh, run your city there in a quiet way without ever having to take an unpopular stand, you have a nice image.

-In that particular race, even though Pete Wilson had an image and a name of his own, it really was all about Jerry Brown, how he had performed as governor, the strengths and weaknesses of his candidacy, of his service.

So, the race really was a referendum on Jerry Brown.

-In California, San Diego mayor Pete Wilson has defeated Governor Brown in the Senate race.

-We were still leading in the polls all the way up to the election day and in the exit polls, and then lost.

I will never forget that.

I was shocked.

Jerry was shocked.

Everybody was shocked.

-I don't think Jerry ever wanted to be in the Senate.

He doesn't have a legislative DNA.

He has an executive DNA.

And so I don't think his heart was in it.

-If he'd have won that Senate seat in '82, he would have been perfectly set up to run for president in '88, in '92.

He blew it!

He blew it.

He would have had a legitimate chance of becoming President of the United States if he hadn't have been so eager to do it early in his political career.

-That was the kind of governor he was.

He took chances.

Uh, he was slightly ahead of his time, um, and he was willing to pay the price of being ahead of his time.

-For the past eight years, this man has been one of the best-known, most controversial, outspoken, imaginative politicians in America.

Now, at age 44, he's about to be out of a job.

Governor Jerry Brown, who lost the California Senate race, what now?

-I believe that the people of California would like a respite from me, and in some ways, I'd like a respite from them.

So, uh, each of us will -- will withdraw from each other, and after a period of time, my services will be available in some interesting capacity.

After you're running for office and all of a sudden you stop, what do you do?

I had it in my mind to, at some point, come back into politics, so I wanted to prepare myself and learn about things and do things.

In '86, I went to the Jesuit University of Sophia and I said, "I'd like to talk to somebody who can tell me about Zen Buddhism."

They said, "If you want to practice Zen, you need to go to Yamada Roshi."

[ Bell dinging ] -[ Speaking native language ] -There was a, what you call a zendo, and that was a small building next to a home, where this Zen teacher, he had what was called a lay practice.

So I learned about the history, but also just Zen meditation, usually two hours every night.

Very unusual for a former governor, very unusual for a politician, but also very instructive.

-I think Jerry and Jacques were in Japan for a year.

I think he wanted to reflect.

Maybe he was going back to where he started in the priesthood, as a place to regroup and as a way to collect himself, 'cause I think losing the Senate was probably pretty devastating for him, because it didn't make any sense.

-Then the next year, I then went and visited Mother Teresa and worked with her.

She said, "Well, you should go work at The Home for the Dying," and I did that.

The reason I went there was to see how, in the face of misery, one person, by just taking the first step, can really make a change and not be overwhelmed by cynicism or despair or the enormity of the problems.

Because we can get very negative about, well, the crime rate, the poverty rate, the environment, and that leads to cynicism and that separates us.

I wanted to see this woman, this saint, who is not overcome by evil, as it were, but overcomes it with a very pure heart.

-You know, working with Mother Teresa gave him a satisfaction that I think he didn't get from those last years in the governor's office.

I remember talking to him at one point, he asked me, "Do you still read a newspaper every day?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Well, I sort of enjoy not seeing newspapers.

I can go weeks sometimes now."

So, I mean he was... happy to kind of tune out for a while.

-It really has given me a chance to go back and think through my own life and what I've really felt most strongly about, and just try and connect the pursuit of spiritual values with political activity and ambition, and filled with the kind of excitement that I really sense right now.

-Jerry and I, we met in 1990.

I was trying to set him up with my girlfriend, but it did not take.

And I was in the process -- someone was trying to set me up with another guy, and she ended up with him and I ended up with Jerry.

-He has had other relationships through the years, though I think when you're in politics, once you're in it and in the game, it's very difficult to build and sustain an intimate relationship.

-When I first met him, I really didn't know what to make of him.

He is a very unusual person, and his brain is running a million miles an hour and always on new topics and new ways of looking at things.

So, any conversation we would have always took me in directions I never could contemplate.

-You gonna go back into politics?

-Uh, I think it's possible.

-When?

How?

-Well, you have to be called.

-Mm, a lot of people call themselves.

-Well, it's a combination.

But sometime in the next few years, I'm sure I'll find a way to make my services available.

I really originally thought about running for the U.S. Senate.

But then I said, "Well, the Senate, it's actually no more difficult to run for president, and because it's in small pieces, you can run in New Hampshire, in Iowa, in other places.

You don't have to have the full-blown campaign apparatus on day one.

You can build it based on success."

And so, I thought that, uh, that I would do that, and so we did.

-He's back!

Yes, by way of Bangladesh, Calcutta, Mexico, and Japan, the twice former governor of California, Jerry Brown, is trying to make a comeback in politics.

-Bill Clinton is the same old politician with the same thousand-dollar checks, the same lobbyists, the same hacks and hustlers out of the East Coast that are part of his operation.

I represent an insurgent movement.

We don't take more than $100.

We've got our 800-number.

We're saying America, let's take it back.

-Where the campaign is going?

The campaign is going towards victory.

And, uh, it's, uh, day by day and, um, voil!

C'est suffit!

Je parle plus!

En francais... -It was crazy wild.

You know, nobody'd ever done the job that they were doing.

We literally made it up every day.

The press hated me!

Jerry's had that message ever since he ran for Secretary of State.

The message is that money and politics doesn't work.

-Jerry Brown was very much an odd kind of a character.

And by odd I mean that you really could not put him in a box.

That's why he was also very successful always when he was on those presidential campaigns because he became kind of a disrupter, and at that point they didn't even know what this word really meant.

They called it something else.

But he just came out of nowhere and he would say things and he would really kind of disrupt the system and rattle the cage.

-The election must be about something more than a debate between Democratic insiders and Republican insiders.

Debating over marginal changes.

And problems can be met with incremental efforts.

If you really believe that, please don't vote for him.

-Bill Clinton thought about running in '88, but he didn't.

By 1991, Bill Clinton thought, "This is the timing for me."

There is no brilliance in politics.

You hope you do the smart thing, you hope you think through the issues, but your luck and timing better be correct.

-There was a point in the campaign where things were moving Clinton's way, it was pretty clear he was on a steam roller to the nomination, and then suddenly Jerry Brown won the Connecticut primary.

-There was a time that the Clinton staff debated whether to take the Brown campaign seriously.

They no longer have that luxury.

-Where we got lifted up right away was winning Maine right after New Hampshire, and so it just soared.

Except don't ever think you're going to win.

They'll kill you first.

-How do you get enough delegates to win, Governor?

-What?

-How do you get enough delegates to win?

-Well, basically, win the rest of the primaries and have Clinton stumble along the way.

I mean, that's the only -- -You can't just have delegates by winning the rest of the Primaries.

-No, you have to -- Look, you want a plausible strategy?

Clinton stumbles, I win the rest of the primaries, in national surveys I do better against Bush than anyone else.

If you want a plausible -- That could happen.

-Democratic leaders and the other candidates view him as the skunk at the picnic.

Many believe he is hurting the party.

-He's out there attacking the other Democratic candidates saying all the conventional politicians are the same, no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.

That's not good for the Democratic Party to have one of the Democrats saying that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

-Does the question, Governor Brown, of Mr. Clinton's recent problems, lead you to believe that he has an electability problem?

-Yeah, I think he's got a big electability problem.

-Well, what do you think it is?

-I want to tell you what it is.

It was in right in the front of The Washington Post today.

He is funneling money to his wife's law firm for state business, that's number one.

Number two, his wife's law firm is representing clients before the State of Arkansas agencies, his appointees, and one of the key is the poultry industry, which his wife's law firm represents.

-Jerry began to criticize Hillary.

I'm sitting in a holding room, but I'm not out on the stage, but I could see, "Oh, God, Clinton is really getting angry.

I hope he doesn't hit him."

-This guy just accused you of having somebody funnel legal fees to your wife and the poultry and whatever all that jazz was.

Is that true or isn't it?

-It's in The Washington Post this morning!

-Is it true or isn't it true, Governor Clinton?

Wait a second.

-You're always trying to attack.

-Mr. Brown.

-You never answer the question.

-Mr. Brown, let him answer.

-Let me tell you something, Jerry.

I don't care what you say about me.

I knew when Pat Caddell told me what you were gonna say, that you were gonna reinvent yourself and you were gonna be somebody else's mouthpiece, you would say anything.

But you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife.

You're not worth being on the same platform as my wife.

-I tell you something, Mr. Clinton.

-Now, wait a minute.

-Don't try to escape it!

Ralph Nader called me this afternoon.

He read me the article from The Washington Post.

-Does that make it true?

-I was shocked by it.

I was shocked by it because I don't think someone in government should be funneling money to his wife's law firm.

-Governor Clinton, you were poking your finger at him, he poked it back, but it's your turn, Governor Clinton.

-Jerry comes here with his family wealth and his $1,500 suit and makes a lying accusation about my wife.

I never, I never -- -It's in The Washington Post!

-That doesn't make it true!

-Are you saying they lied?

-I'm saying that I never funneled any money to my wife's law firm.

Never!

-It doesn't matter how right you are or how close you are to the truth or something that you think the people really want.

That's not how this game plays.

-Well, David, maybe the biggest surprise of all is that the last Democrat left to challenge Governor Clinton is Governor Brown.

His "nickel and dime" campaign is at least a thorn in Clinton's side, and maybe a threat to his nomination.

-It wasn't a fair primary.

The Clintons had the Democratic Party working for them.

So, the whole idea was like, "Okay, let's take a rest."

We had 658 delegates, and let's just take on the convention.

So, the message back to everyone was, "We're gonna be at the convention.

Everyone's going to go, we're going to have a presence," and we took it over for two days.

-What Clinton forces had hoped to do at this convention, it was to put an airtight mosquito netting around Madison Square Garden.

But somewhere, somehow, as he has all throughout this presidential year, Jerry Brown found an opening and his people are down there buzzing around the convention hall hoping to land and cause some, well, discomfort at least for this party and this convention this week.

-Please move out of the way!

-Governor, why did you reject the offer by Ron Brown?

-Look, we don't, uh, make, you know, deals.

We don't need quid pro quo.

We have a right to speak and we'll speak in a thoughtful way, in the manner in which all our Democratic conventions have been conducted.

-Who will nominate you?

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Go ahead, Mark.

[ Crowd chanting "Let Jerry speak" ] -Delegates demonstrated in protest on the floor of Madison Square Garden, shouting "Let Jerry speak."

Earlier today the former California governor charged that the party's chairman was trying to keep him off the podium until he endorsed the Clinton-Gore ticket.

-Jerry Brown.

What to do about Jerry Brown, who, thus far, has refused to endorse the Clinton ticket?

-What are you gonna do about Jerry Brown?

Governor Clinton, what are you gonna do about Jerry Brown?

-What are you gonna do about Jerry Brown?

Anything?

-We're working on it, John.

-You're working on it still?

-We're working on it still.

-Alright.

-Many of you come to this convention as delegates for an old friend of Bill's and mine, Jerry Brown.

[ Crowd chanting "Let Jerry speak" ] You know, I've never known Jerry not to speak when Jerry wanted to speak.

He's always speaking as far as I can tell.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Politics in general is the "wait your turn" or "it's not your turn."

Jerry wasn't gonna play nice, so he was gonna get -- [ Laughs ] He was gonna in there, you know.

And, quite frankly, my opinion is that because he could not be controlled.

-We've been in the media hole of oblivion.

-You have?

-In the dark hole of media oblivion.

-That is a big question, Tom.

We are here with Jerry Brown, as you said, off the convention floor, and the big question tonight, Governor Brown, is are you going to address this convention?

Have you been invited?

-Well, I presume so.

Four million people voted to send me here with a message of political reform to fight the corruption, the politics as usual, and I think it's appropriate.

-So, you -- it's possible you could leave here without endorsing this ticket?

-Yes, yes, yes.

-Okay.

-But we're not committed, you know.

We're moving with deliberate speed.

-With deliberate speed.

-We're deliberate.

-Some things never change.

[ Laughs ] -He was so shut out by the Democratic establishment.

You know, they will not allow him to even speak on the floor.

So the only way he gets to talk at that convention is to have someone put his name in nomination and using that 20 minutes as his address to the convention.

-It is my honor to second the nomination of Edmund G. Brown Jr... [ Cheers and applause ] ...for the President of the United States of America.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Hey, thanks.

I really appreciate it.

[ Cheers and applause continue ] Thank you.

[ Cheers and applause continue ] Almost a year ago when this journey began, it was evident that we faced not merely another election, but the deepening crisis of democracy itself.

What was at stake was nothing less than the life of our nation, its soul, its core principles, the last vessel on Earth.

President Lincoln faced crisis, too, that led to a bloody civil war triggered by the secession of one third of the states.

Today, half the people, individually, have seceded from our political democracy because they don't believe their vote makes any difference.

Whatever nice programs we speak of, whatever dreams we share, unless the basic fact of unchecked power and privilege is acknowledged and courageously challenged, nothing will ever change.

[ Cheers and applause ] -The campaign became a cultural phenomenon.

It was kind of the Bernie campaign of its time.

Well, literally, that campaign then got picked up by Dean, then got picked up by Obama, and then got picked up by Bernie.

And it was my deputy, Tim Carpenter, who talked Bernie into running because of the Jerry campaign.

He says, "It's gonna happen like this, I can promise you, it's gonna happen like this, because you are gonna speak to the culture of the moment, to the populist movement, and you're gonna be lifted up.

I promise you."

[ Cheers and applause ] -Conventions and nominations are never-ending, but only steps along the way.

I intend to fight for this party, its ideals, tonight, tomorrow, this year and every year, until together, we overcome.

And I want you to join me in that undertaking.

And as we join together in this spirit, no obstacle will stand in our way.

Victory will be ours because in our veins runs the blood of those, at the darkest hour, gave their lives so that this nation, under God, should have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this Earth.

We shall overcome!

All of us together, working for what we believe!

Thank you very much!

[ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause continue ] Nine million people have been killed by tobacco companies for their greedy profits.

That's the health crisis.

If you want to expand your awareness, meditate, contemplate, use the natural ways of expanding your ability to understand.

-Sometimes I'd turn on the radio and listen to it.

He'd be on when I was driving home at night.

I found it interesting.

Pretty leftist, saying things that might catch up with him later if he ever ran again, but I never thought he would.

-We met at the firehouse, a property he owned, on Washington Street in San Francisco.

In the course of that evening, Jerry started talking about that he was gonna be mayor.

I said, "That's perfect.

Mayor of San Francisco.

You know the city inside and out."

He said, "No, no, no, I don't mean the mayor of San Francisco.

I mean the mayor of Oakland."

[ Indistinct conversations, camera shutters clicking ] -Well, very simply, as you heard on the radio, I am announcing my candidacy for mayor of Oakland.

Oakland has been pushed around and has often been shortchanged to help other people, and now it's time for Oakland to pull together and advance its collective interests.

-Three-time presidential candidate and two-term California governor Jerry Brown is on the ballot again.

-Hello!

-How are you?

-Hope you vote for me.

Jerry Brown.

I'm running for mayor of Oakland.

-Imagine the former governor of the state of California wanting to be mayor of Oakland, you know, as tough a city to run as there is in California with the economic distress there and the degree of racial unrest that there is in Oakland.

I was astonished that he would want to do that.

-It was really the only path he had back to power after a career that, despite a lot of promise early, really tanked and failed for, what seems to me now, like a really painful middle period of his life where he was lost and wandering in the wilderness.

And that's not an uncommon experience for people who end up having a lot to give later.

-Are you overqualified for the job of mayor?

-If the cities of America had no problems, I might be overqualified.

These, uh, places of urban America have blight, neglect, uh, schools that are falling apart, real despair, and that has bedeviled governors and presidents.

So, when I run for the mayor of Oakland, I don't consider that anything other than the greatest challenge I've ever faced.

My name was so big, 'cause I'd run for president, I'd been governor, and I was from the Bay Area, so, yeah, I got almost 60% of the vote.

-He kind of redefined himself by how he played, from the time he left the governorship till the time that he ultimately won the mayorship.

-Now it is with great joy that I present to you our new mayor, the honorable Jerry Brown!

Jerry!

[ Cheers and applause ] -My experience as mayor really opened my eyes.

What was nice about it, when I was governor, to go to L.A., you had to get on the plane.

Oakland, you just get in the car.

You can go anywhere.

In 12 minutes, you can go from one end of Oakland to the other.

So, it was very concrete.

-He said, "You know, potholes are important also, and as mayor, I can do something about potholes."

But to him, it wasn't a demotion.

It was just another phase of being a public servant.

-He began the economic revitalization of Oakland.

He came up with the phrase of "elegant density."

The concept is that it's environmentally smart because you're not living in suburbs and having to drive.

It's about community and about neighborhoods and about economic vibrancy.

And he took all of those concepts and put them into action in this little microcosm of Oakland.

-This is not a situation where it's calm and orderly.

Jerry's job is to kind of swim through chaos and make sense of it.

And if you're gonna work for him, you're gonna get dragged along through some of that chaos, and so you have to buckle in and be ready for anything.

You heard various stories, was he fired?

Did he quit?

There are certain situations in politics where there's not really a distinction between the two.

Once when I was in his car, I looked and I saw a letter from Jacques and I just looked at it, and it was just Jacques saying, "Hey, when I talked to you today, it felt like old times," and it was almost like a brother writing to another brother, and I don't think they ever spoke again.

-Jacques came to peace with not being in contact with Jerry.

But he also knew it's what had to be.

The effort was not made on either of their parts, and they both seemed okay with that.

-I also think it had been a long-running competition to hold the prime spot in Jerry's life with Anne.

-After they got married, he would call and he said, "This is so great being married!"

It's a little like he's invented it, or the first to discover it.

And to this day he has that enthusiasm about marriage.

And they are great friends, great partners, and truly, you know, in love with one another.

-Over the years, I can just see the way that Jerry's become more playful and warmer.

And these are all feminine attributes that he didn't get when he was hanging around with Jacques.

[ Chuckling ] Let's just put it that way.

-For the first time, he actually had a partner.

Anne became a real participant in Jerry's career.

-As he neared the end of his mayorship, he thought he should run for Attorney General.

His father had always said that was his favorite job.

Pat Brown loved being Attorney General.

So, I think Jerry thought he would love that job.

[ Cheers and applause ] -When I was a little younger, I used to say, you know, we're gonna take the young guys and throw all those old guys out.

It's time for radical changes!

[ Laughter ] Well, today I say there's no substitute for experience, and that's what I got a lot of.

[ Laughter and applause ] The person who made it all possible, my campaign manager, Anne!

[ Cheers and applause ] Anne, come up here.

-Thank you, Jerry.

Thank you all very much.

It's, uh, I just want also thank all the people who worked on our campaign, there are many of you here tonight.

Most, uh, newlyweds, I'm told, take something called a honeymoon.

Uh, Jerry and I didn't do that.

We went on a campaign, and, uh -- but I think we're gonna get a honeymoon, right?

-Right.

Soon.

-Yeah, right.

Good.

-In the previous governor's jobs, he could just give orders.

But when he took over the AG's job, presiding over the biggest law office in the nation outside of the U.S. Department of Justice, he actually had to work.

-Because the Court of California said that marriage was a fundamental right and that same-sex couples had the right to be included, therefore, even though Proposition 8 passed, it can't take away fundamental rights.

-During my time when I was governor, we sat together.

We worked on various different issues together.

It was so great to have someone that is a Democrat, and here I was a Republican -- it was never that atmosphere.

He and I could work together so well.

It was really remarkable.

-He went back into the practical arena for the second time and kind of worked his way up, in a way that he hadn't the first time.

And it was almost as if a whole second apprenticeship had happened that made him this master craftsman.

-It's back to the drawing board for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California lawmakers.

The two cannot agree on a solution to narrow the state's $26 billion deficit.

Now, one Democrat member says, "I hate to describe it as a setback, but we have stalled."

-We kind of got bankrupt as a state.

We could have defaulted on all of our bonds.

I mean, it was really, really bad.

-Unemployment was very high, uh, there was a distrust in the government.

So it was an opportunity for an outsider to come in.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -I have a record of standing against the tide.

-Hey, how are you?

-How are you, man?

-They didn't call me Governor Moonbeam for nothing.

I proposed stuff that people said, "Wow!"

And I have the intestinal fortitude and the moral energy to do the same thing again.

[ Crowd chanting "Jerry" ] -Jerry Brown, who was the youngest California Governor in history, is now running to become the oldest, and he's running against the woman who brought us eBay, Meg Whitman.

-Where is Jerry Brown?

What is he doing?

He is not campaigning.

He is not out meeting with people.

But I am, and that is going to make a big difference on November 2nd.

[ Cheers and applause ] -We knew that it had to be Jerry 'cause nobody else could fix the problems.

But it did seem insurmountable at first because, I mean, Whitman ended up spending $130 million.

[ Cheers and applause ] -He knew how to campaign.

He knew how to talk to the people.

He didn't just talk to the brain, but he also talked to the heart.

And he really showed, "Here's the vision that I have for California, here's where we can go, and this is the way I will be and how I will run this state, so be with me."

And people followed him.

-"I" -- state your name.

-I, Jerry Brown... -"...do solemnly swear..." -...do solemnly swear... -"...that I will support and defend..." -...that I will support and defend... -"...the Constitution of the United States..." -...the Constitution of the United States... -"...and the Constitution of the State of California."

-...and the Constitution of the State of California.

-Congratulations.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.

[ Cheers and applause continue ] -Thank you.

-When Jerry was elected the second time, I said, "That is [bleep] fantastic!"

And what an opportunity!

And just as a friend, I thought, "Who gets this chance?"

-This is my eighth State of the State speech.

So, in preparation for this, I went back and I read them.

Uh, tedious, sometimes sobering, and a challenge to do better.

So, with that prospect in mind, I continue.

It's unusual to have a chance to be in this office, and then 28 years later, come back and do essentially the same function but in a very different context.

The problem when I came back was much clearer, much more focused.

-Oh, here he is.

Great.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -Good afternoon.

-Good afternoon.

-Good to see you.

It's been a while.

-How was Southwest?

-Southwest was good.

It was a bumpy landing, and that may be emblematic of where we are today.

Uh, we're in for a bit of a bumpy ride because the spending by the state, uh, exceeds, uh, by $16 billion, the revenue that we expect to come in.

But even though that's a big problem, we've got a big answer.

-I think one of the things that made him so effective in his second tour as Governor was that he remained what he'd always been, the unpolitician's politician.

And that persona was, "A," authentic to him and, "B," had come to seem like something very precious in American life.

And people reacted very well to that.

-17 is not 4!

19 is not 8, and 21 is not 7!

That is real!

That -- That's real!

That's stuff we're not doing!

Now we're gonna wipe out that with more cuts and the taxes.

That's the plan.

Now, is it hard to believe that government is telling you the truth?

Well, I'm -- Look, I've been here a long time.

I know what the hell I'm doing.

I'm a truthful guy.

This is the way it is.

If anybody has a better idea, I'll take it.

-How big a bet is this for you?

-How big a bet?

-Yes.

In other words -- -I don't... -Your future and your reputation is on getting this bill passed.

-I don't have that much of a future.

I got more of a past than a future.

So, I'm not betting anything.

I'm just coming to work every day, uh, I'm enjoying the hell out of it, and I'm gonna do the best I can, and whatever way the people go, I'm going with 'em!

-The measure passed with 54% of the vote.

California voters had actually agreed to tax themselves.

With that new money beginning to come in and the recession fading a bit, and previous cuts in effect, Brown could declare last week that the budget deficit had vanished.

-No one had more experience, had thought more about how government operates, how you need to manage in government, and you need to have priorities in government or you can't serve the people.

That second eight years, there's never been a better governor anywhere.

-So this fourth term, no one's ever had it, no one's ever going to have it again.

And I take the responsibility and the opportunity very seriously.

And every part of my mind, my body, uh, my imagination, I'm going to throw into this next four years.

And for whatever reason, I get up every morning so enthusiastic, energized, ready to go out there and make a difference in California.

So my wife can tell you that, 'cause I jump out of bed, and I wanna go.

So tomorrow, I'll be there, figuring out, you know, what the hell you do in a fourth term.

-If you think of Jerry in his last time as governor, probably the national leader in terms of climate change, I mean, it has been a continuity.

We have Bernie Sanders, we have Elizabeth Warren, focusing on climate change.

And that's something Jerry Brown was talking about in 1975.

-There is no substitute for experience and some wisdom, and he brought both the second time.

I describe it as the old bull and the young bull, and, you know, the young bull wants to go down and tackle every problem that, you know, they can.

And the old bull goes, "I'm gonna take my time and tackle one problem at a time."

And that is what I thought -- I think he brought to his second term.

-I think his political career was an expression, to some degree, of his spiritual side.

You can have contemplation, or you can have action, or you can have both, and I think he did a bit of both.

Can you make these things better?

Can you reduce the suffering?

-Let's go.

-All right.

-Let's turn the lights out, guys.

We're not work-- as my father would say, we're not working for PG&E.

Will you grab that other light, Evan, just... -Yeah.

-We do not need all the lights on.

When I leave the governorship, I'll be turning the lights out, too.

All right, let's go.

Journalists like to hypothesize that there's one thing that I'm most proud of, or one thing that is my legacy.

But as governor, you can't be a one-trick pony.

There are many important things.

[ Cheers and applause ] -His rejection of legacy is very simple.

As someone who has studied history -- ancient history, Roman history, Zen history, you name it -- he knows that very few people get remembered.

To him, the idea that you have a legacy is an egomaniacal confection that makes you feel more important than you are in the struggle with the void of your forthcoming mortality.

And so, I think he rejects that for the idea that you have to do what you're doing in the moment.

-Without question, the best governor since I've been alive, but probably in the history of California.

I mean, think about it -- Gavin comes in with $12 billion surplus.

Two thirds of both houses of the legislature are Democrats.

I mean, you want to talk about -- that's called a political trust fund right there.

-Young people can learn from Jerry not to be put in the box, and they can learn from Jerry not to go and cater to your party, but to cater to the people.

-Governors have to be mindful of the future, but, basically, you're governing for your time and maybe five years down the road.

But he is decades down the road, decades down the road.

-You can be fully human and remain fully human in the midst of the world's chaos and contradictions.

Everything's a decision.

Which side am I gonna go on, the easy path, the rightful path?

And I think, by and large, Jerry stayed on the right path.

-And anytime you say, am I going to do it for political reasons, personal, or what's right?

I think I am, as you are, as all of us are, a complex of motives.

And, uh, everything we do is an admixture of many thoughts and premises oftentimes we don't even understand.

Hey, Kelly!

Kelly!

Let's go!

Come on!

Come on, get in.

-There we go.

There we go.

-Hold on.

Don't do that, okay?

There we go.

There we go.

[ Engine rumbling ] -Are you happy?

-Happy?

As opposed to what?

-Uh... -No, I'm very unhappy.

What does that mean?

I mean, every state -- you mean happy with this ride?

Happy with my life?

Happy with you?

-All three.

One at a time.

Go.

-Now, you asked me -- No, now, be a little more concrete.

Happy with the fence?

The dog?

Very happy with my dog.

He's good.

You're gonna have to open this gate.

-Happy with your life?

-No, that -- that's... [ Engine rumbling ] All right.