Jerry Brown spoke at Boalt the other day. He's Oakland's mayor, California's former governor, former California attorney general and a former presidential candidate. He was only like 36 or something when he became governor, and he noted the other day that he was pretty inexperienced at the time. His philosophy was you don't need experience to be a good governor; you can rely on creativity and "brilliance or whatever." Now, all these years later, his attorney general campaign slogan is "There's no substitute for experience."

The first time around, he'd see someone he thought was smart and hire him or her. Once he was out to dinner and saw a guy from SEIU making a stink and being obnoxious at the restaurant. He thought, "That's the kind of guy I want," and made him secretary of labor. He said to us, "I would literally see someone smart go by and say, 'I'll hire him.'" This time around, though, he'll have a process.

As to the same-sex marriage issue, he says he's all for equal marriage rights but wouldn't do anything differently than Lockyer is doing. Huhhh?? There's a viable argument here: his duty as AG is to represent the people of California, who voted for Prop 22 (which he voted against) and to uphold the state's laws. Okay, but isn't he also supposed to uphold the state constitution? In fact, his campaign web page says "I will defend our constitution and the laws of our state." What happens when the two conflict? I note that he put constitution first on his web page, but not necessarily in practice.