Brown: Gaffe and Mea Culpa

14 September 2010 |permalink | email article

A Meg Whitman TV ad featuring Bill Clinton attacking Jerry Brown in one of their 1992 presidential campaign debates could play a major part in deciding the tight race between the billionaire Republican and the Democratic Atty. General.

Brown seemed to score a significant point when Brooks Jackson reported 18 years ago for CNN that taxes went up or down during his previous time as governor. Jackson, now at FactCheck.org, said Saturday that “Brown is right. I made a mistake in my 1992 report” on whether the governor lowered taxes.

That might have ended it. But Clinton, who had a dislike for Brown and accused him of lying about taxes, has inadvertently become a shadow Whitman pawn, and she has refused to withdrawn the ad. But Brown compounded the problem by saying “Clinton is a nice guy, but whoever said he always tells the truth.” On Monday he scrambled to amend the gaffe by calling Clinton an excellent president, that it was a bad joke about an incident so many years ago, and “That I’m sorry.” Brown got that part right but the question is whether he can convince the very popular former president to forgive and aid his candidacy.

Willy Brown, the former Assembly Speaker and ex-San Francisco Mayor, offered some hope to Brown by saying on MSNBC that Hillary Clinton will be in California before the election to campaign for major Democratic candidates. Could it be an opening toward a rapprochement?

Proposition 19

A law enforcement group said Monday that legalizing marijuana would put a big dent in drug cartels and free up police, prosecutors and judges to go after violent crime. Former Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray indicated that Proposition 19’s passage in November would decriminalize an estimated 60,000 drug arrests made in California each year.

“I was a drug warrior until I saw what was happening in my own courtroom,” the Los Angeles Times quoted Gray, a former federal prosecutor, as saying at a news conference held by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit organization supporting Proposition 19.

Many active law enforcement groups, including the California Police Chiefs Assn, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and candidates for statewide office in November, strong oppose legalizing pot. State officials estimate passage could generate up to $1.4 billion in new tax revenue per year. An early September survey showed Prop. 19 winning among likely voters in a ABC/Survey USA poll, 47 to 43 percent. But women, older Californians, minorities and Central California residents have given momentum to the initiative’s decreasing support.

    . 

 

 

245