Jerry Brown gets a challenger for 2014

It’s official: Gov. Jerry Brown has a Republican challenger for 2014.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a San Bernardino conservative who has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration and efforts to pass new gun laws, entered the fray for 2014 with an announcement in Baldwin Park on Tuesday.

Speaking from a makeshift stage in a furniture warehouse where sawdust covered the floors, Donnelly vowed to send the Democratic incumbent packing.

“I want to let Jerry Brown know that he can probably get good deal on a U-Haul so he better lock it in early,” he said. “Not only are we coming for him but the people of the state of California are coming for their freedom back. We are going to take it back in 2014.”

He decried what he described as Brown’s failed socialist experiment that has resulted in the unemployment, poverty and taxes that are among the highest in the nation. Donnelly’s remedy includes increased off-shore oil drilling and improving schools and the state business climate.

In conjunction with the announcement, Donnelly’s campaign released a two-minute video that sets the tone for what is likely to be an unconventional gubernatorial bid. “We need to make California the sexiest place to do business,” says Donnelly, who is among the most frequent and at times inflammatory speakers on the Assembly floor. “Because right now the only thing sexy to me in California is my wife.”

In the video, Donnelly, who is perhaps best known for his arrest at an airport after a loaded gun was found in his carry-on luggage, also takes some shots at the press. “I’m tired of the media being jerks,” he says in the video. “They’re always trying to divide us.”

Donnelly will have some work to do if he is to win his party’s nomination, let alone defeat the incumbent Democratic governor next year. Brown has not formally announced whether or not he will seek an unprecedented fourth term as California governor, but is widely expected to run.

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Donnelly gets fine, probation on gun chargesanthony.york@latimes.com

@anthonyyorklat