Attorney General and undeclared gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown proved again Thursday why he's one of the most quotable people in U.S. politics.
During his weekly call into San Francisco radio station KGO, Brown launched into a scathing condemnation of the political process, which included slamming consultants for manipulating candidates and getting in an extended dig at super-rich Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Listen to the call here. Brown's section starts at minute 15.
While describing his difficulty arranging a meeting with Chevron executives about a planned renovation to its Richmond refinery, Brown added, "I think some of these CEOs, it's kind of like Whitman, they isolate themselves. They don't like to deal directly with opposition and different kinds of thought."
When asked to talk more about Whitman, Brown said, "It's quite staggering this $50 million that she's invested. ... If you read these campaign reports, you see this new role of campaign consultants, which really in recent years has virtually taken over the democratic process and converted it into a business like the selling of soap or corn flakes. I mean it's quite astounding, and I hope people will really scrutinize the way money is being spent to manipulate public opinion rather than to open up a free debate and an exchange of ideas."
According to campaign finance reports filed Monday, Whitman spent $5.25 million last year on campaign consultants. Brown, on the other hand, has hired a small team for his undeclared candidacy, with many of them volunteers.
Host Ed Baxter reminded Brown that he's raised plenty of money, too - $8.3 million last year - and received this response, "Compared to the 70 million that the two Republican candidates have collected, I mean, I'm kind of, you know, this is...I don't know how to describe it."
And then Brown returned to Whitman:
"There's a lot of reporters who think, we want an interview with you and I say, 'Look I'm not running yet, why are you trying to talk to me? Why don't you get an interview with Meg Whitman?' and most of them can't even get in the door and people can come over to my headquarters. I talk to people. I'm walking down the streets of Oakland. I have a pretty open-door policy.
"And I just think that it's very dangerous in a democratic society that you can control a candidate, you can script their words through focus groups, through polls, through consultancy, pay millions of dollars to figure out what people want and tell what they want irrespective of what the candidate truly believes as a part of their belief system.
"We're really just getting a very manipulative controlling process and if I do announce and whenever that may happen I'll tell you I'm going to do my best to open up this process so people knows what the hell's going on."
By the way, this blog seemed to catch Brown's attention after it posted last week about Brown's jab at San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on the same radio station. His comments ended up traveling the blogosphere for a few days.
"I think there was some blog up there in Sacramento, they actually put the audio from our show," Brown said Thursday. "I guess this thing is getting pretty either electric or radioactive."
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