81 year-old 4-term California Governor Jerry Brown's recent comments suggest that he sees himself as a potential Trump-beating anybody-but-Bernie nominee after 2020 primary campaigning has further exposed the general election weaknesses of Harris, Biden and the other anybodies.
Q: Why did Jerry Brown say this 4 weeks ago?
"I think we need stability at the highest level." To counter Trump, he said, "Even a scent of wimpiness would be fatal... You have to not only be strong but exude strength." Don’t trade insults-- "If you insult back, then you violate a very important principle, and that is that voters don’t like squabbling at City Hall." But at the same time, "you’ve got to go toe to toe... just do it with charm"” like John F. Kennedy did. And then, when the moment is right, "You’ve got to hit him between the eyes, rhetorically."Q: The above can be understood as the answer to the question of why Jerry Brown has not endorsed Kamala Harris-- whose most impressive campaigning accomplishment was early capture of an exceptional range of California endorsements, some of which, like Barbara Lee and Nanette Barragán and (somewhat) Ted Lieu, were less predictable than those from monied moderate California state- and city-level machine cogs-- clearly Brown is not persuaded that Harris has the necessary campaigning skills to beat Trump.
Q: Why does Jerry think Trump will be hard to beat?
As a professional politician, [Jerry] is impressed by Trump’s political skills. "He has a chutzpah and insouciance and just charges ahead," Brown noted, and he is skilled at playing on the "resentment" of his followers. "He’s convincing... He’s a dynamic speaker." Brown is particularly impressed by how Trump has turned the border wall into a "metaphor."Q: So does Jerry think Joe Biden matches up well against Trump? I think the opposite message is sent by the above interview's conclusion (which is not expressly attributed to Brown, but is redolent of his style) which deniably but unmistakably trolls Biden's propensity for tongue slips:
The question now is which Democratic candidate can exemplify F. Scott Fitzgerald’s definition of a "first-rate intelligence"-- namely, "the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."Q: What about Bernie (who perfectly satisfies that "two... ideas" requirement)? This is about as gentle an anti-Bernie quote as is possible for a veteran of mainstream politics:
It’s a mistake to lay out specific programs "that have trillion-dollar budget implications... the New Deal occurred when there was 19 percent unemployment. That’s a lot different from 4 percent today. So people’s appetite for major change is not as great when everybody’s working."Q: Finally, why did Jerry Brown select, to carry the above message, none of the media players in the huge California market where Brown has been the dominant politician for much of the last 50 years, but instead this archetype of the MSM-Imperial Deep State-Complex?
Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a global affairs analyst for CNN. He is the author of the NYT bestseller The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (January 2018) and... The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right (October 2018). Previously he wrote Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present, The Savage Wars of Peace and War Made New.
I was a supporter of Jerry Brown during his first two terms. But he's lost me during his second two terms. Giving Kern County to the frackers, screwing Bay Area farmers and fishermen to benefit Central Valley Republican farmers with a ridiculous damming scheme to capture rain which isn't even falling, and bungling the high-speed rail are each alone plenty to back someone else.
ReplyDeleteStay out of it, Jerry. Mike Royko's ghost is just waiting to pounce.
max boot again? really? you soil yourself.
ReplyDelete