President Jerry Brown?

30 May, 2014 by John Seiler

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I think there’s a high chance Gov. Jerry Brown will run for president in 2016. He tried three times already, so you know he has “fire in the belly.” After November, he likely will be coming off an unprecedented election victory for his fourth four-year term as governor.

His campaign message — California is back, I fixed a state ruined by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’m solving pension and other problems and can do the same for America’s — could resonate in 2016 with Democratic primary voters.

The Washington Post just ran a humorous story on Brown’s feud with the Clintons going back to the 1992 primaries. So if Hillary runs, as seems likely, Brown would get another chance to tweak them by running in the primaries.

True, Brown today is 76. But Hillary is 66 and would be 69 if elected in Nov. 2016. That’s a year shy of how old Ronald Reagan, the oldest elected president, was when he entered the White House in 1981.

The Post on the 1992 campaign:

After Clinton locked up the nomination, Brown pushed for the ability to give a speech from the floor of the Democratic Convention, hosted that year in New York City. He wasn’t allowed to do so, but was eventually allowed to second his own nomination. He used the opportunity to launch into a restating of his campaign themes: fighting the “growing concentration of wealth” and banning “political action committees so people and corporations are on the same level.” (If he does run in 2016, he’s got his platform all-but-set.)

It used to be any prominent politician, Republican or Democrat, could get at least a few minutes to speak at his party’s convention. But the Clintons began the unfortunate policy of freezing out those they didn’t like. Also prevented from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention was Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey (father of current U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr.) because he wanted to give a pro-life speech.

In a similar fashion, after Pat Buchanan gave his infamous “Culture War” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention — which didn’t “declare” a culture war, as it’s often portrayed, but only announced one already existed, which in 2014 is obviouis — the GOP shut down any dissenting voices beginning at their 1996 convention.

That’s why, except for Clint Eastwood’s extempore performance at the 2012 GOP Convention — you don’t tell Dirty Harry how to make his day — since 1996 both party conventions have been staged and boring.

Here’s some of the fireworks from the Brown vs. Clinton debate in 1992: