In Jerry We Trust

By Catherine Gewertz

Nearly eighteen months ago, Jerry Brown rode into the gritty city of Oakland, past the boarded-up shops and paint-chipped schools, welcomed like a savior by the droves who sent him to City Hall. It didn't matter that the former California governor had not held elected office in 16 years, that he had no experience in city management, or that he was perceived in some political circles as a bit of a fruitcake. The people of Oakland put their trust in him. We want you to make our streets safer, they said. And we want something we haven't known for decades: to live in a city where good things seem possible.

So faithful were the voters who elected him mayor in a June 1998 landslide that they gave him rare, expanded authority over the city's affairs. And Brown responded not with the soaring, hyperliberal rhetoric that is his trademark but with tough talk and action. The man once lampooned as Governor Moonbeam hit the streets as Mayor Practicality. He booted out the police chief, pressed the embattled superintendent of schools into quitting, and coaxed piles of development money to downtown's iffy streets. And he became a one-man chamber of commerce, boasting that Oakland has more affordable rent, better weather, and an easier commute from anywhere than that boutique of a city across the Bay Bridge.

So far, Brown's performance as a city pol has been rewarded with big civic kisses. Some California reporters have fawned over the resurrection of Jerry Brown, and in one local poll, 82 percent of...