Reply #44: Brown's candidacy in 1992 was one of the most interesting campaigns

[saltpoint]

within the Democratic Party ever.

This was a fairly crowded field that included Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey, and Bill Clinton.

Harkin ran as a favorite son in Iowa and got 76% of the vote in the Iowa caucus. No one else put much money or organization into Iowa, as it was Harkin's turf. Favorite sons (or daughters) don't always win, but when they do lose, it's big news. In 1968 Governor Brannigan of Indiana ran a favorite son campaign but lost to Robert F. Kennedy.

In New Hampshire in 92 Paul Tsongas won with 33% and Bill Clinton, after a few weeks of dodging questions about running around on his wife, came in second at 25%. Bob Kerrey (11%), Tom Harkin (10%), and Jerry Brown (8%) followed, all doing better than they thought they would do in snowy New England.

The candidate who might have canceled Tsongas and Clinton out withdrew from the primary race on the eve of the deadline for entry. Mario Cuomo was the Big Guy. As much a NH neighbor as Tsongas and with none of the baggage of Clinton. He was expected to enter the NH primary for some months. A plane had been fueling on the tarmac in Albany on the night before the deadline which would carry Cuomo to NH to announce his candidacy. We know only that a telephone call occurred while the plane was fueling between Cuomo and Bill Clinton. After he hung up, Cuomo went outside to the tarmac, paid and thanked the pilot, but told him to put the plane inside, that no flight to New Hampshire would occur.

We don't know who called whom or what exactly was discussed.

Cuomo still drew 4% of the 1992 New Hampshire primary vote as a write-in.

Jerry Brown was the only challenger who survived the field against Clinton that year. Clinton hewed to the middle. Brown appealed to the more progressive faction. A glimpse into how he upset a few apple carts in 1992 is here:

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/35501

--but the best account is in Joan Didion's essay, "Eyes on the Prize," a razor-sharp assessment of the 1992 campaign generally and the Democratic Convention especially. Didion owns the arena when she sits down to write about politics.

Many of us who position our personal ideologies well to the left of Bill Clinton found in Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign not a hopeless quixotic gadfly but a principled stalwart of the average American. I got to meet him in Arizona for the Arizona primary that year. He lacked the aw-shucks personability of a Mo Udall, for example, and the welcoming smile of a Jimmy Carter. Certainly he lacked the money of his far-better financed opponents.

I don't have one thing against Gavin or any other Dems in the 2010 gubernatorial race in California. If Gavin becomes the Party's nominee for Governor, and were I still in California as a resident, I would vote for him against any of the Pukes being mentioned. But not over Brown in the primary.

Jerry Brown is in the lead at the moment. He's a thoughtful and forward-looking soul. He offers significant diversity of adult experience. IMO being Mayor of Oakland is a tougher job than being Mayor of San Francisco. He's more hard-boiled than he was in 1992 -- being an Attorney General or on earth generally will do that to a person -- but he has staying power because he remains a principled progressive.