Suffering a Change in Fashion

JERRY BROWN is no longer "the sort of candidate who could be 20 points down in the polls of Friday, blitz the state over the weekend, and hand you your ass on Tuesday." That's how one Carter aide described him in 1976, when Brown upset Jimmy Carter in five primaries. Those victories, astounding for a man who had been governor of California barely six months, are now distant, almost absurd memories.

A month ago Brown was so worried about the embarassing possibility of having a zero next to his name on television screens across the nation that he told his Iowa supporters to try to win election as uncommitted delegates. And although Brown did manage to garner 11.5 per cent of the vote in Maine's caucuses this week, he was able to pick up only two delegates. Brown's showing was respectable only in comparison to his pathetic performance earlier in the race.

What is most surprising about Brown's precipitous decline is that it comes despite growing popular acceptance of the positions he has stressed--energy conservation, fiscal conservatism, a halt to the development of nuclear power, and, most recently, opposition to draft registration. The once unorthodox blend of liberalism and conservatism that Brown was the first to champion has received increasing popular support; many of the candidates are now describing themselves as "socially compassionate fiscal conservatives." Still, Brown's campaign has yet to ignite, or even give off a spark. The essence of his success in 1976--his unconventionality--has triggered his downfall in 1980.

"The first rule of politics is to be different," a veteran Brown aide remarked in 1976, when the campaign emphasized the exotic in his personality, capitalizing on people's interest in his outrageous lifestyle and philosophy. The years of misty evocations of Zen consciousness, bachelor pad living, and inviting royalty to brown-bag lunches have taken their toll, however--the image of unorthodoxy that was Brown's greatest asset in 1976 has now become his chief liability. Brown's campaign staff works furiously to dispel the conception of the governor as a "California flake."

Brown's aides concede that their candidate's poor performance results from what they anti-septically term an "image problem." Pollster Lou Harris and his nationwide interviews show voters regard Brown as "superficial", "opportunistic," "unreliable," and "flaky." Americans perceive Brown, despite his mainstream politics, as so far beyond the bounds of the civic religion that he could never be nominated, let alone elected. Recent events in California--the murder of two public officials in San Francisco cult in Guyana--have made the public far less indulgent of the stereotype of western eccentricity that Brown epitomizes.

In an attempt to shake his West Coast image, Brown appears on the campaign trail in a pinstripe suit, brushing aside questions about the more unusual elements of his lifestyle. Still, even those who respond favorably to Brown's opposition to nuclear power and military spending are confused by the barrage of bizarre terms with which Brown laces his speeches--"Class 9 meltdowns," "biomass conversion," "photovoltaic generation," and "holistic medicine." And Brown, who is using rock concerts to bankroll his campaign, will never shake parts of his image: one youth told a reporter that he came to a Brown rally only to "see the man Linda Ronstadt dates."

As in 1976, Brown is trying to tout himself as the anti-politics politician, describing his dark horse campaign as a "frontal attack on the conventional wisdom of a dying political party." Since the time he "limited lobbyist spending to two hamburgers and a coke" as California secretary of state, Brown has been perceived as a young reformer defying political convention. This cherished image, though has undergone a radical metamorphosis. From the anti-politician fighting politics as usual, Brown has come to be viewed as the consummate politician--a master puppeteer and ventriloquist who not only rehearses what he is going to say but also how to make it look unrehearsed. Brown's political fickleness on Proposition 13 may have saved him a gubernatorial election at the price of deeply scarring his political future; in the words of West Coast journalist Mary Ellen Leary, he has been branded "a surfer on every popular wave, a politician who veers to the current fad with an intuition as unerring as a heat-seeking missile on the hunt of its target."

Jerry Brown's success in dealing with certain issues--energy and affirmative action--has done little to change a national reputation based largely on his personality and symbolic rejection of the prequisites of office. Stressing trivia, he has become a master of the cosmetic solution--his new Plymouth cost more than the second-hand limousine he traded in.

Brown's pronouncements often create an impression of false progress. Political observer Richard Reeves relates the following exchange:

"I'm going to starve the schools financially until I get some educational reforms," Brown said.

"What reforms? What do you want?" asked the director of the California Teacher's Association.

"I don't know yet," Brown replies.

Californians are wearying of a governor who has spent only two of the last four and a half years on the job. In a ten day period last year, the legislature overrode three Brown vetoes, which former aide Jim Lorenz called "unprecedented in California history." Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Curb drew national attention to Brown's absences last year, signing key legislation while Brown was on the campaign trial.

But despite the well-publicized gaffes, few governors have matched Brown's record on the environment or affirmative action. In his first term, Brown named over 1000 women, 300 Hispanics, and 200 blacks to state posts. And Brown has shown imagination, proposing creative solutions conventional politicians would not even consider: he sponsored a plan to underwrite physician's malpractice insurance in exchange for a guarantee of medical services to the poor, and demanded the same $65-a-month pay increase for all civil servants, janitors and judges alike.

It is an oft-repeatead aphorism among his supporters that in the year 2000 Jerry Brown will be barely the age Ronald Reagan is today. But by the year 2000 Brown may have run unsuccessfully for the presidency more times than Harold Stassen. Americans may tremble at the thought of Jerry and Linda living together in the White House. Still it is healthy, out in California, to have a politician who believes politics is more than merely "art of the possible."