Jerry Brown ‘Starting to Look Good to Democrats’

Jerry Brown is “starting to look good to Democrats,” according to MarketWatch, citing the fourth-term California governor as a potential presidential alternative to Hillary Clinton in 2016. “The 76-year-old governor of California wowed the politicos with his appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday. He was passionate, sharp and didn’t speak in code.”

Democrats continue to search for an alternative to Clinton, who is trapped in a series of scandals surrounding her tenure at the State Department in the first term of Barack Obama’s administration. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal noted–in the news section–that the State Department had no inspector general, “the lead watchdog charged with uncovering misconduct and waste,” either in office or nominated during Clinton’s entire stint at Foggy Bottom.

It is unclear why the president gave Clinton the ability to act with impunity–or why Congress agreed–but the timing of the question is telling.

“[T]here is a palpable fear in the party that the former secretary of state could be buried under her baggage,” MarketWatch observes, adding that Jerry Brown’s appeal is that, despite being 76 years old, he is appealing to Democrats with “more passion, more honesty, a more genuine commitment to a progressive agenda.”

Gene Maddaus of the LA Weekly agrees, though is less bullish on the prospect of a Brown candidacy. Calling Brown California’s “start-over dad,”–i.e. a father who begins a new family in middle age–Maddaus wrote Tuesday that the secret to Brown’s high approval as governor is that he has focused on the state instead of seeding his presidential ambitions, as he did in 1992.

“The second time around, an older father gets to correct the mistakes he made with his first children….So it is with Brown. The first time he was governor, he was distracted by national politics….he’s lost the ambition to do anything else.”

That, however, is an open question.

Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak edits Breitbart California and is the author of the new ebook, Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party, available for Amazon Kindle.

Follow Joel on Twitter: @joelpollak