Meet Willie Brown

Former San Francisco Mayor, Speaker of the California Assembly, and author Willie Brown was promoting his new book, "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times" at Sonoma State University this evening. I've read that he is flamboyant, self-centered, intelligent, and well-versed on his favorite topic: Willie Brown. All of these things proved to be true. And more.

Willie L. Brown, Jr. is a study in human contradictions. On one hand he is adamant that anyone working as a public servant in political office has only one bottom line to adhere to, serving the best interests of the people. This means that self-serving takes back seat. He also has a tendency to speak of himself in the third person. He never uses the royal "we," but he does talk an awful lot about Willie Brown–by name. He is clear that his role as speaker was to make other members of the assembly look good. He is also clear that he is and was a power broker behind the careers of many high-profile politicians, many currently in office.

He is highly intelligent and not shy in sharing his insights and his analysis. He does not, however, claim to be the cleverest man around. That honor goes (in Willie Brown's opinion) to former California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

My 21-year-old son was my companion. We were the second and third youngest people in the audience. I would put the average age of the attendees at 65 or higher. I took my son because he has an interest in politics. When Fidel Castro stepped down and handed over the reigns of Cuba to his brother, my son had been out of town that day and hadn't heard the news until it was several hours old. He then called and chastised me for not keeping him apprised of this momentous event. We talked for 20 minutes about the potential long-term impacts nationally and internationally of the shift in power. Every other young person (under the age of 25) that I spoke with today didn't know who Willie Brown was. I knew that my son would be interested in spending an evening immersed in political discourse.

The discussion eventually moved to the current presidential race. Brown claimed that Obama has been able to side-step the race issue, but that Hillary Clinton was definitely a victim of gender bias. He seems very clear that if the two were on the presidential ticket together that gender and race would no longer be an issue and that McCain would be left in the dust. He also referenced Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" as a potential primer for Obama to follow Lincoln's lead of assembling a cabinet, in advance, of rivals and supporters alike to assure good council for the presidency.

All in all it was an interesting evening, and I would imagine an exhausting one for the guest of honor. He began his day in Montreal at 2:00 a.m. our time. He then flew to New York before returning to this coast and arriving at SSU. The program began at just past 7:30 and when we left at 9:30 or so he was still signing copies of his book. I'm not sure I could survive that kind of day, especially given that it is not be an unusual schedule for him. The man is 74-years-old and has far more stamina than I do.