Brownout
You may recall that Jerry Brown keeps emailing me and asking me for money even though he’s not running for anything. (Like, say, governor of California.) This has been going on since June of last year. Here’s his first email to me, here’s where he took out exploratory papers, and here’s where he wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. Which I appreciated. My kids didn’t care, and my wife was asleep, but I was humbled and grateful. So I emailed him to return the warm wishes and to ask if he was actually, y’know, running for something — a fair question, given the fundraising — and if so to maybe actually start doing it, because it’s embarrassing having (then) three Republicans announced and no Democrats.
Two months later, he’s emailed back with an answer.
Now, please. Don’t think of this as slow. Yes, the pony express was faster, especially when it was only Sacramento to Burbank. And yes, if at one time it took only 80 days to go around the world, why should this take so long in 2010? But here’s what I would say: There was that Thanksgiving holiday, and then Christmas, and then New Year’s, and then Martin Luther King Day, and there were lots of Sundays in there, and Jerry has been very busy responding to people wondering why he’s raising money and not actually running. So busy, in fact — that he didn’t answer me personally. He had someone named Lila respond. Here’s what she said:
Hi Lee,
Thanks for your email. While Jerry is considering a potential run for
Governor, he is not a declared candidate. He has said that he will
make a decision on the Governor’s race by the filing deadline in
March, until that time he is focused on his job as Attorney General.
Regards
Lila
But this doesn’t seem like much of an answer to me. So I thought I’d try again:
Lila,
Thank you for the response.
I will be supporting whoever the Democratic nominee is, assuming there will be one.
In the meantime, why is Jerry raising money if he’s not running for something? That doesn’t sound like focusing on his job as Attorney General. It sounds like he’s being coy or something. Please explain.
Thank you.
(By the way, the reason I said “I will be supporting whoever the Democratic nominee is” is because the two Republican candidates are this person (who in very un-Jerry-like fashion declared her candidacy a year ago ) and this person. At one point, a fiscally conservative and socially progressive Republican, Tom Campbell was in the running, but now he’s running for Senate.)
I’ll let you know what Jerry (or Lila) say. I expect an answer around Easter. After the holiday, of course.