‘I Have Just Begun to Fight,’ Brown Assures Supporters : Candidate: He is gracious in defeat. His battle cry may well refer to general political reform, not further pursuit of the nomination.

An unusually humble and gracious Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., his 54th birthday celebration spoiled by New York’s dissatisfied voters, promised supporters Tuesday night: “I have just begun to fight.”

But Brown, waxing philosophical at an election night party as returns showed him running third behind both Bill Clinton and Paul E. Tsongas, sounded as if he might be fighting more for his cause of political reform than for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Having lost the crucial primary that two weeks ago he brashly had predicted he would win, Brown told 300 cheering supporters in a union hall: “I’m going to conduct this campaign for as long as it takes . . . to galvanize the moral energy to rededicate this country to economic and social justice.”

Brown on primary day received birthday greetings from a priest at a Roman Catholic Church where he worshiped, listened to children sing “Happy Birthday” at a senior citizen’s center where he campaigned and attended a birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, joined by his sisters, nieces and nephews.

But voters denied him the present he wanted and needed to maintain the credibility of his insurgent presidential campaign.

The mood at Brown’s election night party was far more subdued than the heady jubilation two weeks ago in another nearby union hall that greeted his upset victory in Connecticut.

There seemed to be a strong consensus among Brown insiders and volunteer workers alike that their candidate’s selection of the Rev. Jesse Jackson as a potential running mate fatally wounded the Californian in New York, where roughly a third of the Democratic electorate is Jewish. Many Jews here regard Jackson as anti-Semitic because of his embrace of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, his support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and his 1984 reference to New York as “Hymietown.”

“Jerry would have won New York if he had not selected Jackson as his running mate. A lot of people were offended by that,” said Tom Quinn, a longtime Brown political adviser who joined the campaign briefly in New York.

But Brown, whom many feel also hurt himself with hard-hitting attacks on Clinton, was gracious in defeat. When his supporters booed Clinton and Tsongas, Brown admonished them.

“This is not a time for the mean-spirited. This is a time for generosity,” he said. “This is a time for inclusion. It’s a time for opening our hearts to all the people who are looking to our party.”

It was a far cry from the “prince of sleeze” label he had pinned on Clinton.

On Tuesday night, Brown said: “I have to tell you this: Bill Clinton’s one heck of a competitor, no doubt about that.”

But Brown also said, “This is not about Brown, it’s not about Clinton. It’s about giving voice to what has been forgotten and neglected in one of the richest countries of the world.”

He added, looking to the future, “this is about real change, and real change doesn’t happen in one election or one state. . . . When you stumble, you don’t complain about it, you stand up. . . . I’ll see you tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow--and don’t forget: 1-800- . . .”

The crowd roared.

But some of his labor supporters clearly were upset with the entire primary process.

Barry Feinstein, head of the New York Joint Council of Teamsters, said: “Voters here said ‘none of the above.’ There has been no imagination captured by anyone here. One thing is clear, these guys (running) ain’t going to do it.”

Election Day got off to an ominous start for Brown when the driver of his press bus carrying network television crews and reporters for major newspapers refused to budge at 7 a.m., as scheduled, until the campaign paid him $925 cash. After 45 minutes of stalemate, the driver finally accepted a check, but too late for Brown to get any news coverage of him shaking hands with voters outside a Bronx polling place.

Brown later got testy with reporters who pressed him around noon for his reaction to exit polls, which showed Clinton with a good lead.

“I refuse to get into the ‘if’ business,” Brown told a local reporter at the senior citizen’s center. “That’s the whole corruption I’m running against. Don’t preempt the people. You’re not the king here. You’re just a reporter.”