Although Amy Lindsay, the actress, has appeared in a long list of movies with erotic titles, she’s also a Christian conservative and Republican voter, and Cruz — a U.S. senator from Texas — shouldn’t be turning away supporters, said Melendez.

“Neither Ted Cruz, nor any other presidential candidate, can afford to go and only try and attract the purest supporters out there,” said the Lake Elsinore Republican, noting that Lindsay earns a living legally. “That’s not America. America is made up of everyone, from porn stars to doctors to grave diggers to truckers. As a candidate, you can’t go cherry picking your supporters or you’ll lose.”

Melendez said the Cruz campaign’s decision to pull the ad was “a little hasty.” She said voters judge and vet candidates on who they are, not who their supporters are. Melendez said she didn’t think what Lindsay did for a living “is any reflection on him.”

According to Buzzfeed, Lindsay — who grew up in Cruz’s hometown of Houston and has a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin — is still deciding between supporting Cruz or business magnate Donald Trump, but thought it would have been “cool” for an “open-minded woman” like her to appear in a Cruz campaign video.

Cruz’s campaign contends that Lindsay responded to an open casting call, but didn’t know of her experience at the time and pulled the ad once they became aware.

Melendez added that if Cruz is elected president in November, he will represent everyone in America, including soft-core porn actresses like Lindsay.

Melendez has not yet endorsed in the presidential campaign.

Second thoughts

Brown himself has teased reporters over the course of the year with remarks that slammed the door shut only to creak it open again. This March, on Meet the Press, he admitted he would join race if he were 10 years younger. “If I could go back in a time machine and be 66, I might jump in. But that’s a counterfactual, so you don’t need to speculate on that,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Now, in the minds of analysts, his own state of mind has become a secondary consideration. More important: the surprisingly fluid nature of the Democratic race.

While observers have thrilled to the chaos inflicted on Republican candidates by the rise of insurgents Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the story with the biggest political implications this summer has concerned Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Despite a superficially significant lead, her persistent challenges on authenticity and trustworthiness — fueled by a classified email scandal set to drag on for months — have raised fears that a party elder will have to ride in to the rescue.

Building the case

That’s where Brown has come in. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Martin O’Malley, Clinton’s main rivals, have gained the confidence of party elites. The political vacuum opened up wide enough to encourage Vice President Joe Biden to consider declaring his candidacy. But his slow deliberation opened a window of its own for Brown, according to supportive analysts.

Last month, former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told Fox News he “wouldn’t be surprised if Michael Bloomberg, Jerry Brown or Elizabeth Warren jump in the race if it looks like Hillary Clinton will implode,” Real Clear Politics noted. “If Hillary starts to implode you will see a vacuum that you have not seen in many, many years,” he warned.

For old-school liberals sensing a 21st century moment, Brown led that pack. “He comes across as something fresh and original,” wrote Michael Kinsley in Vanity Fair. “All that New Age stuff that seemed so weird when Brown ran for president the first time (in 1976) is still part of his repertoire. But he’d be helped if he ran by the extent to which yoga and brown rice and so on have become part of American culture. Jerry Brown hasn’t gone mainstream (or at least not much), but mainstream has gone Jerry Brown.”

Less partisan observers have focused on the appeal to Democrats of his record in office. “Brown is quite popular in the state — 52 percent approval to 27 percent disapproval in a May Public Policy Institute of California survey — and has overseen an economic recovery in the state that many people thought was impossible when he took over the office in 2011,” noted the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

A newsy narrative

But Brown’s popularity, as Cillizza also suggested, hasn’t diluted the longtime Clinton critic’s outsider sensibility. The prospect of Brown mounting a renewed challenge to the Clintons’ control of the party would certainly make news. Brown notoriously pushed his combative 1992 presidential candidacy all the way to the party convention, delivering a speech of his own while the party finally formalized its nomination of Bill Clinton.

Now, according to former Clinton administration official Lara Brown (no relation), Gov. Brown’s “more than two-decade long reputation of being the ‘anti-Clinton’ would “endear him to Sanders’ supporters, but would also place him in good stead were the party needing to wash its hands of all things Clinton in the wake of an indictment.”

Like clockwork, the national media took the hints. On Friday, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most influential political reporters, wrote a column entitled “The Case for Jerry Brown.” It’s lead:

Amid the breathless speculation as to whether Vice President Biden will get into the Democratic presidential race — and, if not Biden, then who else? — there’s one name that’s consistently overlooked: Jerry Brown.

Cillizza noted not just Brown’s plausibility as a national candidate but his enmity for the Clintons.

When Brown ran for president in 1992, he stayed in the race all the way through the June California primary — where he lost to Bill Clinton by only seven points. The Clinton team made no secret of their unhappiness about how long Brown lingered.

 

Then there was the moment in a March 1992 debate where Brown savaged Clinton over his and his wife’s ties to the Rose Law Firm. “He is funneling money to his wife’s law firm for state business,” said Brown of Bill Clinton. “It’s the kind of conflict of interest that’s incompatible with the kind of public servant we expect.” If you think the Clintons — or Brown — has forgotten about that accusation, you don’t understand how politics works.

Here is a link to a minute from the debate. Bill Clinton’s disgust with Brown is apparent. It’s worth a look.

Singling out Arkansas for ridicule

Brown’s low opinion of the Clintons continues to turn up in obscure ways. In a fall 2014 debate with GOP challenger Neel Kashkari, the governor mocked a question about whether California would be able to pay its vast unfunded pension obligations with this potshot: “Are we in Arkansas or Mississippi? This is the eighth-largest economy in the world,” he declared.

Mississippi is the nation’s poorest state. But according to a report based on government data issued by the liberal Center for American Progress, Arkansas isn’t even in the bottom 10 of impoverished states. It’s home to six Fortune 500 corporations, including giant Walmart, and has a more diversified economy than most Southern states, with civilian aircraft its top export and a booming aquaculture industry. Yet Brown jumped at the chance to belittle Bill Clinton’s home state.

Whatever one thinks about the governor’s record, he is entertaining to watch. He understands how politicians and the media interact better than just about anyone. He knows how a feint can prompt a specific reaction. He enters his high-profile interviews with an agenda, than acts on it.

So what Jerry Brown’s next step when asked about a possible last-minute presidential bid?

A non-denial denial would keep the speculation percolating. We’ll know soon enough.