Posted on 12/31/2003 7:58:05 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is one of the most successful politicians in California history, a trailblazer for blacks in public office and a legendary master of the deal. Yet in an interview this week, Brown, 69, was unusually somber in assessing the sacrifices entailed by his very public career, which he is ending next week after 40 years in politics. "You can't be as successful as I've been and have a private life separate and distinct from your public life. They're all one and the same," he said in an interview at City Hall. Brown, known for his outgoing, often jocular public manner and dapper appearance, said immersion in politics makes real personal friendships virtually impossible. "All of my friendships are rooted in politics," he said. "I don't really have any old time pals. I've been doing this so long, my whole adult life, my old time pals are my contemporaries. And they've either been helpful all the way through my political life, or I don't even remember who they are." Long separated from his wife, Brown said he maintains family ties largely by inviting relatives to his public events. Over the years women, often decades younger than he, have come and gone from his life. He has been around long enough to have worked with both actors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governors. Brown won a seat in California's assembly in 1964, and a decade later became assembly speaker, a job he kept for nearly 15 years and likened to being "Ayatollah of the legislature." For the past eight years he has served as San Francisco's mayor, a job Brown leaves on Jan. 8 because of term limits, making way for protege Gavin Newsom, 36. BITTERSWEET TURN Born poor in rural Texas, Brown saw California as a path to advance in the world, made his way to the state in 1951 to attend college and stayed. The mayor said after retirement he is looking forward to a calmer life setting up his own public policy institute, but it is clearly a bittersweet moment. "I'll miss all the physical surroundings. I'll miss the responsiveness of the bureaucrats," he said after keeping a reporter waiting for more than an hour and a half as a stream of visitors waited to gain an audience with the mayor. "I can pick up the telephone now and make sure the guy about to tow your car doesn't tow your car .... I'll miss all of that." Brown's critics say he has amassed too much power, enabling him to dole out favors, a characterization he denies. "I'm not a fan of his," outgoing District Attorney Terence Hallinan, with whom he has sparred publicly, told Reuters. "I think unfortunately there's been a lot of corruption in the city ... Since this administration has been in it has been worse and worse." Even beyond retirement age, Brown flows with political energy, leading some observers to predict that, like Schwarzenegger's screen Terminator character, he'll be back. "Nobody believes for a minute that the man who has so dominated California politics for the past quarter-century is anywhere close to being done," the Sacramento Bee newspaper wrote. Brown insists he is indeed exiting the political stage. "Forty years of holding elective office is a sufficient amount of time for anybody," he said. "I've served more time than any other continuous office holder in the state of California." "I don't really mind the pothole aspects of the job. The ceremonial aspects of the job are getting a little bit tedious," he said. One of Willie Brown's legacies is expanding far beyond black voters in building a broad base of support. Yet he says blacks still have far to go in American politics. It is a "major struggle. Just think: New York had a black mayor, gone," he said before adding Chicago, Seattle, Denver and Los Angeles to his list. "Racism and racial consideration is still very much a part of the system." "Blacks holding elective office still have to rely on primary black constituencies to get there. There are very few Willie Browns of the world whose constituencies are under 10 percent on the black side." The way Brown won wide support was through mastering the art of the deal and remembering that his adversaries could one day later help him. "It's always good for the world, in this business, to know that you have power. But it is totally foolish of you ever to use it," he said. "You always leave your opponents with the opportunity to walk away from the table with dignity because tomorrow they might be your friends. That's how I survived for 40 years." "If I was a slash-and-burn person, I am certain it would not take a long period of time before all of the victims rose up and did violence to their oppressor."
That's not responsiveness, Willie. It's simple power lust, that's all. You're a control freak, dude.
I don't know 'ol Willie, but I'd bet a week's pay that some how 40 years at the public trough has somehow landed him a multimillion dollar net worth. And I'll a month's pay this nancy-boy reporter who had an extra hour and a half to prepare didn't have the cajones to ask even one question about it.
This choice of examples is really Freudian. The car towing business is one of the better examples of collusion between corrupt public officials and corrupt "private" enterprise. Take a two week vacation and find that you are facing a $250 towing charge, a $1000 storage charge and $5000 in damage because a neighbor decided to report you.
Here's another one:
Brown won a seat in California's assembly in 1964, and a decade later became assembly speaker, a job he kept for nearly 15 years and likened to being "Ayatollah of the legislature."
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