*Pat Brown’s can-do spirit defined an era of unlimited opportunity and expansion. : California’s Eternal Optimist

How can a man who defends his son, especially when he is not the easiest to defend, be all that bad? One day 15 years ago, when I was working at another newspaper, an urgent letter arrived from Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. It defended then-Gov. Jerry Brown from my “wholly unwarranted” editorial attacks. Suddenly my tortured relationship with my own father loomed before my eyes. I read and reread every word of the former governor’s outpouring as if the letter were defending rather than attacking me.

Yes, a father’s filial loyalty, especially when so blind, is scarcely proof of greatness. But I found it moving that this prominent political figure would, no-holds-barred, stand vigil over his family, ready to protect and retaliate at any hour of the day or night.

Not everyone understands that politicians are ordinary people. Many of them are not crooks; not one walks on water. They have their bad days and good. Encounter a politician who seems more than human, and you have probably met a phony or a con artist. Pat Brown was neither. He was as flawed as the rest of us, but he believed in what he was doing and actually loved his job.

During a golf game in one of those political silly seasons when virtually every name except mine was being bandied about as a potential vice presidential nominee, Pat Brown, then out of power half a dozen years, was struggling with a three-iron. Another member of his foursome started to razz him: “Pat, I hear someone has thrown your name into the veep hat.” This suggestion was so absurd that it roused an instant titter of merriment among the group. Undaunted, Brown uncocked his club, raised his head and then his eyebrows and shot back: “They could do worse.”

Indeed. Brown could laugh at himself, but not at his children. He loved them all, but my sense was that he had huge expectations for his daughter Kathleen, at least before she so disastrously challenged Pete Wilson for the governorship. For Pat Brown, politics and government were fun, but also serious business. With so many lives at risk and opportunities on the line, it was the politicians’ fault if the government adopted incorrect policies or worse, failed to do anything to help people. I think he felt Kathleen was the true inheritor of the Brown legacy.

Now, of course, the era is different. Death is never well timed, but Brown, at 90, left this earth at a time when faith in government has all but died, too. It was as if Brown sensed it was past time to head for a different place, one that would not be so cocksure-cynical about government or so negative about efforts to rendezvous with destiny.

Ultimately, the greatest American politicians are the optimistic ones. And only optimism and good economic times could have fueled the ravenous spirit of the Pat Brown expansionist run from 1959 to 1966. It was then that California gave birth to a vast infrastructure and educational system that in its time was second to none and served as a model for other states. But after that came the Reagan era, as necessary in its own way as was Brown’s. Expectations were cut down to size and California began its long journey back down to earth.

Broadly speaking, the California of Pat Brown is more the true California than that of Ronald Reagan. Not in the sense of big government forever: Reagan, who himself always exuded a sincere optimism about California and America, was right to say that the unchallenged era of government solutions for everything was history. Even so, California is not its true self unless it is thinking the big idea, plotting the next big move, midwifing (and here, yes, Pat’s son Jerry Brown had it exactly right) the next big innovation. The California that stops reinventing itself is the California that ceases to be itself. People around the country sense that about California. The state of mind of America is not the same thing as the state of mind of California, but it is sometimes notably close.

Pat Brown, in his bumbling, jokey way, embodied the spirit that insisted that a smart and resourceful society could get things done for the good of all--or else there would be no common good at all. I was sitting next to him in 1992, when Jerry Brown was making yet another abortive run for the presidency. We were at one of those utterly boring fund-raising dinners in some dreary hotel banquet room, an occasion in which only a true political animal like Pat could possibly extract enjoyment. And he was, cracking jokes and enjoying himself immensely. Finally I asked him: “What do you think of your son’s latest campaign for the presidency?” There was silence for a few long seconds and then that marvelous incandescent twinkle lit up his eyes. Replied Pat Brown: “Have you met my daughter Kathleen?”