Huffington Magazine Issue 85 | Page 12

Enter of Brown’s associates were saying that Brown was going to be “78 [years old] by Election Day 2016,” that he “ran for statewide office only to end [California’s] budget crisis,” and that he was thus “nearly done with politics.” A month later, Bernie Quigley, writing for The Hill, attempted to coax a Brown candidacy into being with the awesome force of the purplest prose he could muster: California rises again with Brown, and it should come as no surprise. California brings the final destiny of our American journey, the final edge of expectation, the end and then the beginning again, the place and time of our American turning. Steve Jobs put it succinctly at the end: “The spaceship has landed.” I asked an astute Californian about Brown’s prospects for national office. He said he will be too old in 2016. But Brown, Zen man of contemporary politics, is in a sense timeless. Yeah... so that was a lot to absorb. The salient point is that Brown, obviously, doesn’t have LOOKING FORWARD IN ANGST HUFFINGTON 01.26.14 the same opinion of his own timelessness. (Perhaps he finally decided to not run when he failed to regenerate into Peter Capaldi?) Brown joins a happy confederacy of other men and women who have indicated that everyone can stop wondering if they are going to run for president, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D), San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (D), New Mexico Gov. Susana You’re probably aware that Jerry Brown, between his first and latest stint as the Golden State’s governor, ran for president a bunch of times. And so, unsurprisingly, there was always someone on hand to stoke the fires of retro chic.” Martinez (R), Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). Also, Tim Pawlenty is not going to run for president. (I did some digging and found out that this Pawlenty fellow was a former Republican governor of Minnesota who ran for president once before. Who knew? I guess I totally spaced.)