![\"\"](\"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/BT44107_8.jpg\" "\\"Brownpin\\"")
<\/p>\nI have an actual Jerry-Brown-for-governor pin.\u00a0 Bought it from a Democratic Party booth at a street fair in Palo Alto.\u00a0 The governor should remember that when he\u2019s passing out those plum jobs.\u00a0 While I didn\u2019t witness a feeding frenzy for Brown or see too many of those pins being worn, I have high expectations for our recycled governor-elect.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He ran a brilliant jujitsu campaign, allowing Meg Whitman to destroy herself using her own money to do it.\u00a0 (On the other hand, she didn\u2019t need a lot of help.)\u00a0\u00a0 If Brown can carry those skills with him, he can tackle the huge job ahead.<\/p>\n
Partly, my high expectations are a function of age.\u00a0 I know what it\u2019s like to be 70 and to have no ambitions other than doing the best I can in my present situation.\u00a0 I\u2019m not running for anything, looking for a job or for fame.\u00a0 Neither is Brown.\u00a0 He ran for president once, when he was about 38, in a farcical campaign that lasted about six weeks.\u00a0 He\u2019s not going to do that again.\u00a0 He, like the rest of us grizzled veterans, can answer the question straight on: What kind of California do you want to leave to your children and grandchildren?<\/p>\n
But mostly my expectations for our governor-elect rest on the fact that he is what Meg Whitman said he was: a career politician.\u00a0 I like career politicians; the ones that are not criminally corrupt or sold out, which does diminish the numbers by some.\u00a0 They know stuff.\u00a0 During its glory days, Sacramento worked because long-standing legislators, office holders, and staff deeply understood how at least a portion of government worked.\u00a0 They also know how to get stuff done.<\/p>\n
Not unsurprisingly, there\u2019s been lots of advice and commentary.\u00a0 The best summary of the California election comes from George Skelton<\/a><\/strong>, the capitol\u2019s wise man.\u00a0 Brown is going to need all the wisdom he\u2019s got, because the voters have made it difficult to fundamentally fix the fiscal problems.\u00a0 Brown will have to restore trust in government before the voters will come close to funding education and fixing the infrastructure.<\/p>\n John Fensterwald and his stable of scriveners have dished up some thoughts about what to do about public education.\u00a0 Installments one<\/a><\/strong> and two<\/a><\/strong> feature a range of writers from Arun Ramanathan at Ed-Trust West to former U.S. Education deputy secretary, Mike Smith and editor\/sage Peter Schrag.\u00a0 My contribution is there, too.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also weighed into policy windmill tilting with a piece on labor relations based on a piece that Julia Koppich and I did some years back in the American Journal of Education<\/em>.\u00a0 For the full text of the AJE piece, go to the projects link above. \u00a0For the shorter piece at Top-ED, click here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have an actual Jerry-Brown-for-governor pin.\u00a0 Bought it from a Democratic Party booth at a street fair in Palo Alto.\u00a0 The governor should remember that when he\u2019s passing out those plum jobs.\u00a0 While I didn\u2019t witness a feeding frenzy for Brown or see too many of those pins being worn, I have high expectations for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/charlestkerchner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}