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Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.2 KB | 108 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 27

Why Jerry Keeps Running


Experts wrote off Brown as a flaky visionary, but many voters see
him as the candidate of the disaffected

By MARGARET CARLSON -- With reporting by Jordan Bonfante/Los
Angeles and Sylvester Monroe with Brown


    As the collection basket passes through the crowd, Jerry
Brown delivers a 45-minute homily on reclaiming the soul of the
Democratic Party and bringing an end to "the whole stinking mess
in Washington." His audience is 1,500 students, professors and
supporters gathered at the college in Kalamazoo, Mich., where
the student center is attached to a shopping mall. He blasts
those at the top for prospering at the expense of those at the
bottom, and condemns those he claims would send American jobs
to low-wage Mexico. He says, "Thomas Jefferson said we need a
revolution every 20 years. Well, it's been 200 years and it's
time."

    There are whoops of support and moments of pin-drop
silence among these voters who did not make it onto the '80s
gravy train. Although Michigan voters have almost nothing in
common with this walking Experiment in Living, the antinuclear
former seminarian who has washed lepers with Mother Teresa in
India and studied Zen with Buddhists in Japan is showing
surprising appeal. As the campaign enters mid-stretch,
rank-and-file union members, independents, rainbow-coalition
minorities and educated, maverick Democrats are giving the
former two-term California Governor a chance to build on his
victories in Colorado and Nevada and a virtual tie in Maine.

    That Brown is still around to pick up this support
confounds the experts who pronounced his candidacy dead on
arrival due to terminal flightiness. In the first televised
debate Dec. 15, he took out after moneygrubbing politicians,
some of whom he said were onstage with him. He dared to step out
of line and recite his now famous 800 number, angering debate
master Tom Brokaw, who behaved as if anchorpersons deserved more
respect than presidential candidates.

    That behavior -- along with other instances of refusing to
play by the rules -- assured that Brown would be thrown into a
media black hole. The networks ignored Brown, who turned to the
radio talk shows, filling the air with jeremiads against the
confederacy of corruption, careerism and $1,000 campaign
contributions. While his competitors travel in chartered jets
and stay in hotels, he flies coach on scheduled airlines, sleeps
on foldout couches, and is driven around by volunteers who mean
well but have no sense of direction. Late for an important event
two weeks ago, he broke into the motorcade of one of his rivals,
oblivious to Secret Service agents wildly waving at him to get
out. One reporter described the seat-of-the-pants Brown campaign
as "a drive-by shooting."

    Despite the chaos, many voters are identifying with Brown
as the only candidate as disaffected as they are. His 13%
flat-tax proposal with deductions only for mortgage interest,
rent and charitable deductions, though deeply flawed, has found
an audience among those who feel like chumps every April 15. His
plan has the advantage of taking Congress out of the tax-break
business, and demolishing the industry of accountants and
lawyers who guide the wealthy through 4,000 pages of loopholes,
by reducing the average tax return to the size of a postcard.

    These days, the 800 number is often busy, swamped by
110,000 callers who have pledged $2 million in bites of $100 or
less. In Michigan, next to the pro-business Tsongas and
right-to-work-state Governor Clinton, Brown looked like Samuel
Gompers in Earth shoes. In a televised debate last Friday, Brown
chided Clinton for luring employers to low-wage Arkansas, joking
that the state's motto is, "Come on over, we have slave labor
here." Brown has won the unofficial support of the new president
of the cleaned-up Teamsters, Ron Carey, and United Mine Workers
president Richard Trumka. Last week powerful California assembly
speaker Willie Brown warned Tsongas and Clinton to stay out of
the primary there "to avoid a potentially embarrassing loss."

    Brown has been able to convey an authentic outsider
mentality despite the fact that two years ago he was the head
procurer for the Sacramento branch of the professional political
class. The chairmanship of the California Democratic Party was
an odd job for someone who had never slapped a back and who once
vowed to limit state lobbyists to "two hamburgers and a Coke."
His tenure there is now held up by party regulars as an example
of unprincipled ambition. But Brown looks back at the two-year
stint as party chairman like an alcoholic at his last binge; he
will never touch the stuff again, and neither should anybody
else.

    In the 1970s Brown the thinker was often so far ahead of
the curve that he was in danger of hurtling into orbit. But in
many ways the times have caught up with his fear for the planet
and the people on it. Still, like Republican Pat Buchanan, he
may have turned into the candidate for people who are sick of
politicians-as-usual. If that's the case, it's a wonder Brown
doesn't get more votes than he does.