Using Historic Site, Brown Launches Bid for President : Politics: Ex-California governor picks Philadelphia to start campaign. He lambastes political Establishment.

Standing in the shadow of Independence Hall, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. formally launched his candidacy for the presidency Monday by dedicating himself to throwing off the yoke of the political Establishment.

Though he is seeking the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party for the third time, the 53-year-old Brown strenuously lambasted his own party as well as the Republicans as joining in an “unholy alliance” with the entrenched interests that finance campaigns. The result, he claimed, has been to undermine public confidence and create a crisis engulfing politics and government.

“When the political system loses respect and trust, then the decline of democracy will surely follow,” Brown declared. “And when democracy declines, the survival of America is put in jeopardy.”

Wearing a double-breasted dark suit, flanked by two American flags, Brown spoke rapidly, but with force and conviction, sometimes shouting for emphasis. His remarks were warmly received by a lunch-hour crowd of about 300 gathered on a sparkling fall day in a park outside the structure where the Founding Fathers, Brown noted, “forged the miracle of America and called it ‘a New Order of the Ages.’ ”

To dramatize his determination to be “a catalyst for change” and his opposition to “those who run the United States of America like a private club,” Brown reiterated his previous promise not to accept any campaign contribution over $100 although the legal limit is $1,000.

“If the corruption of political money is the issue, then the answer is not to take it,” he declared.

Brown joins a field of nationally prominent Democratic candidates that includes Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Nebraska Sen. Robert Kerrey, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas and Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has been a candidate twice before, has said he is considering making the race. And New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo recently hinted that he too was thinking about it.

The nature of Brown’s announcement provided a striking contrast with his rivals, all of whom personalized their entrance into the race by making their speeches in their home states and drawing on their early experiences in life.

But Brown chose to make his announcement 3,000 miles from where he was raised and started his political career to take advantage of the Philadelphia site’s historical symbolism. Absent from his 25-minute address was any reference to his upbringing, including his political legacy as the son of former California Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown.

Instead, Brown punctuated his speech with a historical anecdote, describing how soldiers of the Continental Army responded to George Washington’s pleas and extended their enlistments at a critical moment in the Revolutionary War.

“These were the winter soldiers,” he said. “Let each of us step forward and enlist as winter soldiers in the cause of America.”

To a considerable degree Brown’s decision to put a $100 ceiling on campaign contributions both defines and limits his candidacy.

“No normal presidential campaign could hope to survive on $100 contributions,” Brown acknowledged. “Thus this candidacy will only succeed if millions of Americans claim it as their own and carry it on their shoulders.”

Bill Batoff, a longtime Democratic fund-raiser who accepted an invitation to hear Brown speak, pointed out that, if he qualifies under the law, Brown could also rely on federal funds to match the contributions he received. The Treasury matches all contributions from individuals under $250.

“I’d like to see this happen,” he said of Brown’s plan to rely on small contributions. “This money-raising thing is a pain in the neck.”

One big problem, however, is that Brown may have trouble accumulating the funds it would take to invest in a direct mail campaign, traditionally the best technique for raising money in small amounts.

Brown denounced campaign consultants as part of the “confederacy of corruption and careerism” that had seized control of the political system. But he is accepting the unpaid advice of two longtime Democratic consultants--Patrick Caddell, a pollster for Jimmy Carter, and Michael Ford, who has been involved with a number of Democratic presidential campaigns since 1968.

Both men advised Brown on his speech over the weekend and helped to reduce its length, Ford said.

Ford also said that Brown would compete in both the Iowa precinct caucuses and the New Hampshire primary next year.

“These are not big TV states,” he said, which would permit Brown to run a low-budget effort in both.

As governor of the nation’s largest state from 1974 to 1982, and two-time candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, Brown could claim experience exceeding any of his rivals. But he appears to have given up this potential advantage by choosing to run as an anti-politician.

Many analysts acknowledge that Brown’s theme of protest seems well suited to the current political discontent over the sluggish economy and the resulting partisan gridlock in Washington over what to do about it.

For example, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke won a slot in the runoff for the Louisiana governorship Saturday by stressing anti-government themes. And here in Philadelphia, the city’s leading newspaper, the Inquirer, Sunday launched a nine-part series to examine “what went wrong” with the country. The series argues “that the rules of the game have changed in some undefined way that rewards a few and hurts the many.”

Brown held up a copy of the first article during his speech and read from it: “How the game was rigged against the middle class.”

“It’s right there,” he cried enthusiastically, “right there.”

But for all the potential power of his message, some of his fellow politicians question whether Brown, because of his often erratic and seemingly willful behavior can be an effective spokesman for change.

His six-year sabbatical from politics, part of which he spent studying Zen Buddhism in Japan and as a volunteer serving Mother Teresa in India, added to his reputation for eccentricity, recalling his second term in the Sacramento Statehouse when he was dubbed “Gov. Moonbeam” by Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko.

Royko has since rejected the label, and Brown supporters see the former governor’s contemplative life outside government as an asset. But Brown’s abrupt decision to abandon his U.S. Senate candidacy last month and run for President instead reinforced the perception of him as an opportunist.

“He would rather run for office than accept the responsibility of serving in it,” California Assemblyman John Burton, a former U.S. congressman and state party chairman said at the time.

Last November, when Brown sought to get support to head a national association of Democratic state party leaders, which would have made him a part of the political Establishment he now denounces, Burton took the trouble to send a two-page letter to every state party leader decribing Brown as “the most self-serving, inept politician” he had ever met.