How Now, Brown?

California is a mouth-watering morsel for any presidential aspirant. With 81 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention, it shares with Pennsylvania the party's second-strongest honors (first: New York with 114). And since taking office nine months ago, California's able, amiable Governor Edmund G. Brown has been wooed like a Spanish infanta for those votes. Every major candidate has gone West to learn "Pat" Brown's intentions, and Brown has parried them all with the answer that he will lead California's delegation to the convention as a favorite son (not to be confused with an all-out presidential candidate) and see what happens. Last week, urged by his advisers to proclaim that he is not a "serious" presidential candidate, Governor Brown took to the air to explain his position once and for all. On Meet the Press, the question was popped, and Brown answered it--leaving everyone as puzzled as ever. Said he: "I'm not a candidate at this time."

Water Gap. Brown has many reasons to duck all-out candidacy and none to proclaim it at this time. In his short time in office, he has pushed the newly Democratic legislature into remarkable action e.g., approval of the $1.8 billion water-resources development program (TIME, June 29), a $61 million income tax boost appropriated to close the budget gap. He has helped abolish California's party-damaging system of primary-ballot cross-filing, has brought stability to the long-fragmented Democratic Party. But his job has just begun: the statewide water-development plan, for example, must still be approved by the electorate next year. The state legislature will not get around to the juicy job of reapportioning California's legislative and congressional districts until 1961. Pat Brown knows that his job and his position with Californians will suffer if he spends all his energies on presidential campaigning, and he also knows that there is no other California Democrat in sight to take over for him

Yet Pat Brown is no political anomaly and he has contracted a good case of undulant presidential fever. Two Brown agents, Lawyers Leonard Dieden and John Purchio, scouted twelve Western states last summer, reported temptingly that the West was still wild and wide open for any candidate who moved fast. At the Sun Valley Western Governors' conference .TIME, Oct. 12) Brown tried unsuccessfully to form a Western coalition behind him (and ran into a buzz-saw rival, Colorado's Governor Steve McNichols). Brown frets over the rest of the nation's indifference to Western Governors. "Nobody outside of California has ever heard of Pat Brown," he told Columnist Joseph Alsop. "And if nobody's ever heard of you, how the hell do you become a serious presidential candidate?" And, as a wistful afterthought: "If only I could change places with Nelson Rockefeller!"

Primary Threat. In the dilemma between duty and desire, Pat Brown has been subjected to every sort of pressure. Missouri's Stuart Symington, Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, Michigan's "Soapy" Williams, New Jersey's Bob Meyner, and their emissaries have all hinted that they would share the spoils, if Brown would share California with them--but Pat Brown has rejected them out of hand. Adlai Stevenson's campaign-manager-with-out-portfolio, Chicago Lawyer Bill Blair, has been by to talk. Jack Kennedy, like Brown, is a Roman Catholic, and cannot offer him even a shot at the vice-presidency. But Kennedy, who needs those 81 votes, may enter the primary race against Brown.

If last week was Pat Brown's time not to be a serious candidate, this week was his week to be as serious as possible. Setting out for the Middle West, ostensibly to attend a meeting of the Special Committee on Civil Defense of the Governors' Conference (committee chairman: Nelson Rockefeller), Brown lined up some other notable dates along the way: lunches with Adlai Stevenson and the Illinois Democratic boss. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley; a call on Old Illinois Pol Jake Arvey; and dinner with Harry Truman.

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