Jerry Brown, not Clinton or Warren, is ‘Nation’s Leading Democrat’

As the Washington, D.C. media focused on the fiscal maneuverings of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), whose opposition to the omnibus spending bill was thought to set up a 2016 presidential run, some are touting Gov. Jerry Brown as the real Democratic Party alternative to Hillary Clinton. Analyst Tony Quinn says: “The big story of 2015 may be the emergence of Gov. Jerry Brown as the new national leader of the Democratic Party.”

Quinn, writing at the California political blog Fox & Hounds Thursday, says the Democrats are “a leaderless party with both a weakened President and an uncertain President-in-Waiting…with no stars in their party save perhaps Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), darling of the anti-Wall Street populist progressives.  None of their 18 surviving governors except Brown are national figures.” Clinton, he adds, cannot escape Obama’s legacy.

Jerry Brown, however, is outside the Beltway and the Obama administration. Furthermore, “Gov. Brown’s embrace of climate change and all things green plays very well with wealthy liberal white Democrats; he has special appeal to Latinos that turned out to be a less than solid Democratic constituency in 2014.” As to age, ” Gov Brown is the same age as Winston Churchill was when he returned as Prime Minister in 1951.”

Quinn is not alone in his analysis. Chuck Todd, NBC News’ political correspondent, said recently that Brown is the most likely Democrat to challenge Hillary Clinton. Bill Maher, host of a weekly political commentary on HBO, also said recently that Democrats should turn to Jerry Brown, despite his age, as the 2016 presidential nominee, since he  “the one person who has a record of competence and reform unmatched in their party.”

Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak edits Breitbart California and is the author of the new ebook, Wacko Birds: The Fall (and Rise) of the Tea Party, available for Amazon Kindle.

Follow Joel on Twitter: @joelpollak