Jerry Brown Wins Nomination for California Attorney General
The New York Times
By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: June 8, 2006
With all precincts reporting, Mr. Brown had received 63 percent of the
vote versus 37 percent for Rocky Delgadillo, the city attorney of Los
Angeles. The Republican candidate, Chuck Poochigian, a state senator
from Fresno, was unopposed.
On Wednesday, Mr. Poochigian blazed through a series of interviews,
promising a serious challenge to Mr. Brown, the son of a former
governor, Edmund G. Brown Sr., and a three-time presidential candidate
who has spent nearly four decades in politics.
“My biggest challenge is overcoming Jerry’s name advantage,”
Mr. Poochigian, 57, said in a telephone interview from
Sacramento. “But Jerry has a bigger challenge to overcome, and that’s
his record.”
Mr. Brown embarked on his own campaign tour, barnstorming through the
state on a private plane, traveling from Oakland, across the San
Francisco Bay, to a pair of Southern California stops in Burbank and
San Diego; then north to Sacramento; and south again to Bakersfield
and Los Angeles.
Along the way, Mr. Brown ventured to Mr. Poochigian’s turf in the
Central Valley to address police officials. At every stop, he sought
to remind voters of his credentials, including his “practical hands-on
experience” as a governor and a mayor.
“I’ve been an independent leader, not just an appendage of narrow
partisan politics,” said Mr. Brown, 68, before boarding a plane in San
Diego. “I’m running against a man who has basically been a staffer or
bureaucrat or a legislator. He’s never run a darn thing.”
But Mr. Brown said he expected a tough campaign, and predicted that
Mr. Poochigian would use negative advertisements to try to paint him
as being out of step with average Californians.
Mr. Poochigian promised to run “a truthful campaign,” but he was
already hammering Mr. Brown for a recent spike in crime in
Oakland. “In the case of Jerry Brown, the truth is going to hurt,” he
said.
In the election to determine Mr. Brown’s successor in Oakland, the
former congressman Ron Dellums appeared to have won, although
officials were still counting the ballots.
Mr. Poochigian has $3.3 million in his campaign chest, aides said, and
has already raised more money than any other Republican running for
statewide office except Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But he probably faces an uphill battle in a state that often votes
Democratic. Mr. Brown’s vote total among Democratic voters on Tuesday
was just 771 shy of what Mr. Poochigian received from all Republican
voters.