Willie Brown is probably the smartest politician I've ever personally met. I'd pay good money to see him and Karl Rove sit down and chew the fat on the mechanics of politics - there's an Internet TV show idea for someone for free - and today, in the SF Chronicle, he's got his take on Sarah Palin.
Palin's speech to the GOP National Convention on Wednesday has set it up so that the Republicans are now on offense and Democrats are on defense. And we don't do well on defense.Suddenly, Palin and John McCain are the mavericks and Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the status quo, in a year when you don't want to be seen as defending the status quo.
From taxes to oil drilling, Democrats are now going to have to start explaining their positions.
Whenever you start having to explain things, you're on defense.
I used to go watch him at the Alameda County Labor Council's BBQ, where he once finished his speech by exhorting the whole crowd to put their hands up in the air. Then he told them to reach down and take out their wallets. Then to told them to take the wallet from the person on the right, take out a bill, and pass it out to be collected.
I thought it was a brilliant piece of stagecraft. My GOP friends thought it perfectly summed up Democratic political philosophy.
BTW, in his column today, he slags my old town, Oakland:
By the way, there's a new dining tip for people going out in Oakland.Be sure to order soup.
That way when the robbery starts, you can slip off your jewelry and drop it into soup so the robbers won't see it.
...zzzzzinnnngggg....
Yes, I read the original article too, and totally agree with you about Willy Brown. In one respect--his ability to cold-bloodedly and objectively analyze political prospects of the major players-- he shares an uncanny gift of intuitive insight about politics with two others who also had such a gift--Nixon and Hitler (who, luckily for us, wrongly thought himself a military strategist, while his true genius was in taking the mettle of politicians).
Of course there is always Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh. I was dating a Mather-based AF Colonel's daughter in Sacramento in 66-67 who was best friends with Unruh's female executive secretary. Some eye watering insights into the inside-baseball aspects of Calif. and Sacramento politics, I'll tell you.
"...she delivered it like she was just BS-ing on the street with the meter maid."
Beautiful. Exactly right.