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34 years later, Jerry Brown runs for governor again The ‘reformed reformer’ wants to be governor again — 34 years after first winning the post.

By Michael Finnegan February 2, 2009

It was 1974 when Jerry Brown ran for governor as a dashing 36-year-old reformer, the embodiment of change in Watergate’s aftermath.

“I was the new spirit,” Brown recalled. “That was my slogan.”

No one would mistake Brown for a new spirit today. At 70, he occupies a prime spot among the elders of California politics. His career has spanned four decades, with three failed tries for the White House along his way up, down and back up the elective ranks.

Now, after two years as state attorney general, this Democrat who first ran for office in the era of Janis Joplin and the Beatles is remaking himself yet again. This time, Brown’s quest is to recapture the job he won 34 years ago: governor of California.

But Brown is already facing a quandary that could bedevil him in this, his 12th campaign: How does a man so closely identified with California’s past show that he is best fit to lead the troubled state into the future?

That question will loom large in the June 2010 primary that will probably pit Brown against at least one younger big-city mayor, Gavin Newsom, 41, of San Francisco, and possibly another, Antonio Villaraigosa, 56, of Los Angeles.

It is an odd role reversal for Brown, who prided himself in the 1970s on forward-looking ideas about solar and wind energy, space exploration and Silicon Valley’s high-tech future. He still casts himself as a visionary, but now a more practical one.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...