Experts Expound

“How about a report card for Gov. Brown after six months in office? No pass-fail here: looking for a letter grade of A through F.”

B for legislative relations, D for communications, and an E for effort.

A solid D. He spent the entire first five and a half months in office closeted in Sacramento on a hopeless quest to sweet-talk Republican legislators into voting for taxes, while letting every other pressing problem go unattended. He has made only a little more than 100 appointments so far, and exactly zero judicial appointments. A governor of California in the 21st century has to be able to multi-task, and Brown has not demonstrated any capability of doing that.

We were tempted to give him a strong B, so he’d have some room for growth. But upon reflection, it’s clear that Jerry Brown gets a K for Kicking-Ass.

He gets a B+.  No question, he has the skills to get an A, but handfuls of kids in the classroom are so disorderly and distracting that he hasn’t been able to rise to his full potential.  

E for effort. Gov. Brown has worked earnestly to govern. It is understandable that he still doesn’t get the irrationality and irrelevance of california republicans.

History/Civics: C+…Social Skills/Citizenship: B…Math comprehension: F…Jerry is a popular boy but too often acts like a know-it-all. Does not work/play well with others and lashes out when he becomes angry, which is often. His failure in Math stems from a total lack of understanding that money doesn’t grow on trees.

B+. He didn’t cave to the Reeps on bridge funding and he took – with the help of the controller – the Dems to places they didn’t want to go.

B+. He killed redevelopment – pretty much what we could have expected from a Democrat beholden to the unions.

Based on a curve factoring in the previous governor and elected officials, I would say a B with only Chiang and Lockyer ahead on the curve.  However, he really deserves an incomplete since this budget just punted the problem to next year; he has yet to appoint a full cabinet and has not outlined any plans aside from the  budget.  It is an incomplete and not an F since Gov. Brown does deserve credit for showing up in legislative hearings, doing the rounds after hours and getting rid of excess cars and cell phones.

Ask me on Nov. 7, 2012.

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