Brown Stresses Economic Ills in Pennsylvania Tour

As he watched Democratic presidential contender Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. pumping hands and giving sound bites in this faded steel town Thursday, Mike Girman puffed on his pipe and reflected on the days when Homestead was a blue-collar oasis.

The vast Homestead Steel Works was running then, as it had for generations. Wages were good and jobs were plentiful, often passed down from father to son.

But five years ago the factory shut down, another victim of the steel industry’s long decline. The town’s fortunes plummeted as well; today, unemployment stands at a whopping 22%.

“You see those kids? Those kids have a college education but no jobs,” said Girman, a retired schoolteacher, gesturing to a knot of young men watching Brown from a street corner. “And even if they did, they’ll never make more money than their grandfathers made in the mills with an eighth-grade education.”

As the former California governor barnstorms Pennsylvania in advance of its April 28 primary, he is clearly trying to capitalize on economic anxiety among blue-collar workers in a state hard hit by joblessness and the recession.

In appearances from one end of the state to the other, Brown repeatedly stressed his themes of full employment, health care and diverting military spending for domestic needs.

And he tweaked Congress and lobbyists for failing to help the faltering health care system--clearly hoping to tap into the sentiment that helped Democrat Harris Wofford defeat former Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh for the U.S. Senate here last year.

Wofford’s rallying cry was: “If criminals are guaranteed access to a lawyer . . . working Americans should be guaranteed access to a doctor.”

Now Brown is sounding a similar theme, as former presidential rival Bob Kerrey did before him. Brown advocates a national health care system much like Canada’s and has indicated he sees the issue as the key to his campaign against front-runner Bill Clinton for the 169 delegates at stake in Pennsylvania.

Congress “can double their pay, they can bounce their checks, but they can’t deliver health care,” Brown said earlier as he campaigned in Philadelphia. “Let ‘em know you’re not satisfied with the way it’s going.”

But with the exception of a turnout of several thousand students at a Penn State rally, Brown has been greeted primarily by sparse crowds here.

Although he has pledged to keep campaigning through the June 2 California primary, Brown is struggling to revive his presidential effort in the wake of losses last week to the Arkansas governor in the New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kansas primaries.

But Brown took encouragement from Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey’s refusal to endorse Clinton before the Democratic National Convention in July.

“Gov. Casey has refused to endorse Clinton, as have many ‘super delegates,’ ” Brown said. “That does bode well for this campaign because it says there are great doubts . . . and people want to keep the convention open.”

Earlier Thursday, at the large Penn State rally, Brown endorsed a woman’s right to have an abortion, as he has done consistently. The issue is volatile in this state, in particular; it is a Pennsylvania case that the Bush Administration hopes to use to destroy Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that invalidated state anti-abortion laws. The students cheered enthusiastically.