A New Team, a New Theme for Brown

Treasurer Kathleen Brown has a new theme and a new team. She has a big lead and lots of loot. And she may have her gubernatorial campaign back on track after a series of awkward slip-ups.

Nobody really knows yet because the most important factor in a high-profile political race is the candidate’s performance, not some staffer’s strategy or contributors’ checks. But she made some good moves over the weekend at the Democratic state convention here in Los Angeles.

It marked “the beginning of a new phase in my campaign,” Brown said.

The new is all nuance--fine-tuning and finesse--but it does denote focus, which her race often has lacked.

The fresh look could be seen in two new campaign buttons, seemingly innocuous until you read the message. “One Million New Jobs for California--Kathleen Brown,” flashed one. The other proclaimed, “America’s Best Treasurer to Revive America’s Worst Economy.”

Or, as President Clinton’s campaign team kept reminding itself two years ago: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

If Gov. Pete Wilson is allowed to keep setting the campaign agenda on crime, he likely wins. That’s usually a Republican issue and one that traditionally benefits male candidates. Her goal is to become “acceptable” on crime and then persuade voters to choose a governor they believe will pad their pocketbooks.

Among voters, the economy still outranks crime (52%-48%) as “the most important problem facing California,” according to a recent Times poll. Nothing else is close.

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Brown, who recently hired the wily Clint Reilly to manage her campaign, has decided to take her case to the voters with the question she posed to convention delegates on Sunday:

“Who do you trust to create the 1 million jobs California needs to revive our economy--Pete Wilson, a failed governor who has presided over the loss of over 550,000 jobs, or Kathleen Brown?”

“Trust”--”jobs”--”failed governor.” Buzz words beamed directly at working-class swing voters.

The biased delegates whooped and hollered their reply as Brown warmed up to the huge crowd and displayed passion that had been missing in previous major speeches.

“Good high-wage jobs. . . . Lose those jobs and we lose the California Dream,” Brown said. “And that, my friends, is what has happened to this state. . . . The last 12 years of Republican rule under George ‘Do Nothing’ Deukmejian and Pete ‘Pass-the-Buck’ Wilson have been like a darkness slowly spreading across the land.”

Brown, of course, felt under no obligation to also blame U.S. defense cutbacks and a global recession for California’s loss of jobs, or to mention that the state’s economy has been improving.

She did address what many have considered a campaign failure: Her seeming inability to articulate what she stands for or why she wants to be governor.

“I stand for progress and for prosperity, for enduring values and a new vision,” Brown told delegates. Later, the fourth-generation Californian said to reporters: “I want to be governor because (the state) has been shortchanged with short leaders who have been short on vision.

“We need leaders who . . . understand (the state), who are willing to invest in it, to fight for it and who care about what happens to average Californians. . . . I’m mad that this guy hasn’t done the job.”

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The retooled Brown campaign--several new key staffers were announced Saturday--handed out not only revised buttons, but slick brochures promoting the candidate’s record as treasurer and detailing her plans for job creation.

Her proposals included a tax credit for creating jobs, a preference for California companies in state contract bidding, a $1-billion infrastructure bond issue, regulatory relief and “no new taxes that will drive businesses out of state.”

But later with reporters, Brown declined to “fall into the political trap” of flatly pledging no tax increase--a caution Wilson hardly can capitalize on since he raised taxes by a record amount in his first year.

It was all part of a new Brown campaign strategy: Fill the voters’ void about who she is by boosting her role as treasurer and specifying what she’d do as governor, while aggressively attacking Wilson. She’ll spend a lot more time on the stump. And she’ll soon begin a blitz of TV commercials.

Brown’s strategists believe she can’t lose the Democratic nomination to Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. That’s because roughly 55% of the registered Democrats are women and polls show they strongly support Brown. Also, Brown has nearly $4 million in the bank while Garamendi has a $600,000 debt, although he plans to begin spending his own fortune.

Against Wilson, Brown has a 10-point lead in the latest Times poll. And she’s probably more of a front-runner today than when the weekend began.