"A Certain Aura of Ironic Detachment"

"He began his gubernatorial first term in 1975 with an off-the-cuff 'address' that ran seven minutes; replaced the traditional inaugural ball with an informal dinner at a Chinese restaurant; traded in his gubernatorial limo for a 1974 Plymouth from the state car pool; rented a small apartment instead of living in the governor’s mansion; and reportedly slept on a mattress on the floor. (As governor, Brown was far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes and spending several times. His austerity, which created vast budget surpluses, prompted one Reagan aide to joke that the Gipper 'thinks Jerry Brown has gone too far to the right.') Appropriately, one of Brown's publicly identified gurus was Small Is Beautiful author E.F. Schumacher, and he once described his governing style, using a strikingly Zen phrase, as 'creative inaction.' That could be very handy if he gets the job he is running for, where limits have been placed on virtually everything a governor can do, and it also provides a strong contrast to Whitman, whose campaign screams hubris."

In The New Republic, Ed Kilgore predicts that Jerry Brown will be California's next governor.