Governor Brown

I’ve worked on many campaigns for many candidates.  I admired and respected most of them, including McGovern, Udall, Gore, Kerry, and Obama.  Of all the candidates I supported, however, only one actually changed the way I thought about the world.  That was Jerry Brown.  During his first term as governor, he recommended we read Small is Beautiful.  His administration included an “Office of Appropriate Technology.”  Columnist Mike Royko called him Governor Moonbeam, but his ideas were decades ahead of the rest of the country.

Yesterday Brown, again Governor of California, delivered the keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco.  He said,  “Just as President Roosevelt put people to work during the Great Depression building dams, roads, schools and other public facilities, we can now put millions of people to work preparing our communities for the effects of climate change and building renewable energy projects.”

Try to imagine the Governor of Texas, or Ohio, or Florida, or Wisconsin, or New Jersey, or Pennsylvania saying something like that.  

We crossed the border into California about 10:30 this morning.  After a day here I realize just how much I miss the politics of this state.