File:Jerry Brown 92 Presidential Platform We the People.jpg

Jerry Brown / We the People / Take Back America Presidential Campaign / "Platform-in-Progress"

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SJS / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:

Personal reflections of 1991 and 1992, working with Jerry, shaping and presenting a campaign platform

My participation in the 1992 Governor Brown campaign for US president began with assisting in the establishment of the national office in Los Angeles.

I worked to set up issues, media, and correspondence. I'll mention as an aside that one goal that I learned in a 'school of hard knocks' was in 1988 in Boston while writing for the Dukakis campaign. The lesson learned was don't let political attacks go unattended and unanswered, Governor Dukakis refused to fight back immediately, telling staff he would 'take the high road' because the 'untoward' attack ads that coming from Ailes/Atwater didn't deserve to be answered. So the attacks did their damage. This would not be the case in 1992 and so I put together a "24 hour" system for response to attacks.

First came our campaign's policies on issues, taken from Governor Brown's own words in his speeches, transcribed and parsed for specific positions. We instituted a "24 hour turnaround" standard for dealing with the media and press. It was, in effect, a version of the Clinton campaign "War Room". Clarify and hit back, hit back hard against false charges and attacks.

I moved to become chair of the Brown campaign in New Mexico and focused on the national platform. Early in the campaign I proposed to draft a formal campaign platform and worked with the campaign and Governor directly to complete our platform document. Our 'out front' positions on issues ranged from the Governor's well-known calls for political reform across to a 'blue-green' agenda bringing together American workers with business in an environmental/economic agenda. With the Governor, I argued our positions and policies throughout 1991/92, in debates, and at the Democrat platform hearings and Convention...

From the Brown campaign platform to the founding US Green party platform

As a note for history and future political reference, a number of policies and positions in the Brown campaign moved forward into the founding Green Party platform which I began drafting in 1993, having moved from the Democratic party to independent status after the 1992 campaign. In 1996, the new Green platform served as a basis of first Green presidential campaign. This platform continued to evolve as your GreenPolicy siterunner drafted and chaired (1995-2001) the platform committee of the newly organized national Green party. The new "official" national founding platform document was approved in 2000 and placed into our Federal Election Commission national committee/party application (and archives) in 2001. For more history on the founding Green Platform and Green Party, see US Green Platform and Green Party.

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Brown Campaign Statement to the Democratic Party Platform Committee

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_statement_to_PlatformMtg-1992-WethePeople-1.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_statement_to_PlatformMtg-1992-WethePeople-2.pdf

Environmental Excerpts from Jerry Brown's "We the People - Take Back America" Platform of 1992

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-1.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-2.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-3.pdf

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Brown_campaign_notes_re_Platform_hearings-1992-SustainableEcon-4.pdf

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SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner:

From a memoir published by the Green Institute including personal recollections of the 1992 Brown presidential campaign ...

Recollections of the 1992 Presidential Campaign

An Insurgent Campaign

The Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton became the voice of the national Democratic Party, but not before fending off an unexpectedly strong challenge in 1992 by the Jerry Brown for President campaign. Having worked with Governor Brown earlier, I joined up with the national campaign and went about helping organize the national headquarters operations, as well as coordinating the campaign in New Mexico and assisting in Colorado. Most important to me were my efforts with Jerry to put together our campaign’s platform.

The Brown campaign, which would finish a close second to Bill Clinton’s "Comeback" campaign, started October 21, 1991 on the steps of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Governor Brown announced an “insurgent” campaign to “Take Back America.”

I am here in Philadelphia to stand as a candidate for President of the United States in 1992.

I am here today to make a commitment to each of you that I intend to keep and honor: That I will work with all my energy and that I will do whatever is necessary to bring about real change.

Permalink: http://www.4president.org/speeches/jerrybrown1992announcement.htm

The campaign’s message from the first speech had a steady beat – there had been “a hostile takeover” of American democracy by big money and corporate interests. It was a historic moment, an attempt to breathe new life into America’s democratic experiment. The speech set out a political landscape we were entering: “In reality there is only one party: It’s the Incumbent Party. There are, of course, two major political organizations with different names, but at their core they are the same. They share the same worldview and they serve the power of the same private interests which, in return, finance the campaigns of both. When there are no substantial differences, there is no choice to be made. Without choices, there is no democracy and when there is no democracy there is no freedom; only a system which entertains us with illusions.”

Governor Jerry Brown quoted Thomas Paine from the Revolutionary pamphlet The Crisis. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He quoted General Washington and the ‘dark hour before the dawn’ when Washington’s winter soldiers rallied when faced with imminent defeat. “I run for President because I believe America is at a crossroads… For 200 hundred years, each generation has earned the title ‘American’ by following a simple moral command: that we give our children better than we received; that we pass on a greater future with more freedom and more opportunity… If we, right now, are prepared in the spirit of our ancestors to join in common cause, putting principle before party and patriotism before profits, then we can reclaim for ourselves and our children the idea and promise of America. The hour has rung for us, we the people, to rise up and take back our democracy and our country!”

Micah Sifry wrote about the Brown campaign platform and Green platform in his book Spoiling for a Fight Third-party Politics in America. It's worth a read if you're in the mood for diving into the proverbial "weeds", the details of what goes into insurgent and change-directed campaigns. A few excerpts are recalled here.

The Brown presidential campaign's goal was to construct an ongoing campaign, a "Platform in Progress", a vision of change.

Governor Brown (and your GreenPolicy siterunner, Steve Schmidt) continued forward with the campaign's positions long after the '92 campaign...

GreenPolicy's siterunner with Governor Jerry Brown at Democratic platform hearing in 1992

As of 2017, the campaign's 800 number still works ;-

Now the number takes you to the California Governor's office again ;-

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