Transcript of M.E. Sprengelmeyer's interview with Jerry Brown

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 19, 2008 at 9:20 a.m.

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Below is a transcript of a brief May 1, 2008, interview with three-time presidential candidate (former California governor and now state attorney general) Jerry Brown, by M.E Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News.

Q: Denver's going to be hosting the Democratic National Convention this summer, so we're talking to the best minds . . .

BROWN: OK, let's go.

Q: I want to ask you about 1992 and "Let Jerry speak." In 1992, why did it take all those people shouting "Let Jerry speak" to get you a spot on the podium?

BROWN: The way these conventions and primary nomination processes work, very early on the leading candidate wants to put it to bed, over. And everything else becomes scripted. And I felt that I had a message, a message of reform. And I wanted to speak at the convention. But before doing that you had to pledge your fealty, your loyalty to the winner. I didn't feel like doing that. So the only way I got to speak was to second my own nomination. It's kind of a pathetic way of doing things, but I did make the talk. And before that, a lot of my supporters felt it wasn't really fair.

It is unfortunate that the great political conventions — they used to debate the issues — are now nothing more than backdrops. They're a form of political advertising, with all the serious issues and questions handled backstage, in a room with media advisers, and not the hurly-burly of constituents, of all the diversity of America showing up at a raucous convention. That's bad TV. It doesn't look good. And when you're in a tight race, you want to present your candidate as a well-packaged, well-controlled image that has been constructed based on careful poll-taking and focus groups. Now, that's just the way it is. If you don't play that game, maybe you don't win.

Q: In the short run it might help you win an election. In the long run is there a danger for the party if you don't allow the full spectrum of the party to participate in a convention?

BROWN: Here's the problem. The raucous convention took place when the smoke-filled rooms determined who was the nominee. Today we have endless primaries, and endless millions of dollars spent to buy the TV ads and hire the people to go from state to state. So this reform, which started out as, "Oh, these bad bosses," now actually goes to the financial leadership. Those with the money and the organizations that can spend money, they then dominate the basis of the TV advertising and the financing of a campaign entourage that moves from one state to the next.

That's the difficulty of adding to that. We're only, we're six months away from an election in November, and yet we're already getting tired of the candidates. How much more of this we can do? So it's becoming dysfunctional, based on the reform going to excess.

And that's the nature of reform. When you have a reform, pretty soon you're gonna need to reform the reform, and then you've got to reform that. It's not quite clear where it's going.

And even the superdelegates now, they were supposed to be there to exercise independent judgment, are told they can't exercise judgment. They have to do whatever the primary did. But remember, the primary isn't as democratic as you think, because it's based on the ability to raise the funding in order to buy the TV, in order to keep the campaign going. So I think we're in a dilemma of the party structure, the party system itself, and I'm not ready to give you what the remedy is going to be.

Q: Last question: What is your advice for the people that are putting together the agenda in Denver for this particular convention about how much they should include or try to use it in that traditional way . . .?

BROWN: At the very least there could be a debate about something, because the Democratic Party is not a unified organization. The primaries to date, showing such a close vote with Obama and Hillary Clinton, to me that says there are big differences. And how do you resolve those differences? By polls or by a legitimate vote at an election on some platform issue? But I'm afraid that's not likely to happen, because platforms are part of the media packaging. That is the way the campaigns work.

You know, in some sense, it's still democratic, because you're going to have McCain, and you're going to have a Democratic nominee. And they're going to be different. And those issues, and the outcome will be the product of the vote.

But the convention itself is more of a show. And it's a show that you don't want too much disruption, because that looks a little unruly, and we want our candidates controlled. And if there's any unruliness, it's supposed to be packaged, not spontaneous or unpredicted or unscripted. So there we are, it's a great American tradition, but it sure isn't what it was a few years ago.

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