Reply #53: Quite the resume you collected for Jerry.

[LooseWilly]

I also voted for him in the primary in '92 (I was out of the country for the actual election... not that it mattered as a Californian). I've lived in Oakland under Jerry Brown's administration. In fact the real estate investment company that owned the warehouse where I lived even gave Jerry a loft space in the Sears building that they'd recently renovated. It was never clear on the streets whether he had to pay for it or not. Maybe it was a trade on the loft space that he had down in the warehouse district.

Being mayor of Oakland is definitely a harder job than mayor of San Francisco. Oakland has its ports, and... uhh... a couple of corporations (Kaiser, Clorox...) ... and the court systems that go with being the county seat. That's 90% of the city economy... unless you count drugs and prostitution... after which re-calculation all of the above amount to no more than 70% of the city's economy.

That said though... I can't help but feel that Newsom seemed to remain more engaged in SF's problems, while Brown seemed to "disengage" more an more as the dot com bubble burst left Oakland sliding back inexorably to the economic doldrums that were so much a part of its defining characteristics. And I can't imagine a more principled progressive than Newsom after that move to declare domestic partnerships as not equal to marriage, and to allow same sex marriages in SF until shut down by Sacramento.

Though Brown did refuse to defend prop 8 before the Supreme Court... and instead joined those attacking it before the court, thereby forcing the supporteres to hire their own representation.

I love Jerry Brown... but after Newsom made the incredibly courageous stand to support gay marriage in the face of the trends of '04... He's got my vote.