Needlenose

As a new poll shows him trailing Megabucks Whitman, ex-governor Jerry Brown of California has decided it’s finally time to begin campaigning to get his old job back:

The political moment that eager California Democrats and some curious Republicans have been waiting for has arrived: Jerry Brown has begun a visible campaign for governor.

He appeared in public Thursday at a sparsely attended rally at Laney College in Oakland, followed by two events in Los Angeles later in the day. . . .

With a TV ad campaign expected to start soon and an accelerated schedule of in-person appearances commencing around the state, the Democrat is ramping up a campaign that many Democrats had been wondering about.

Brown made only a handful of non-fundraiser campaign appearances since the June primary and produced virtually no advertising.

Meanwhile, in almost-completely unrelated national news, President Obama spoke to reporters today and hinted at an election-season economic stimulus proposal — albeit not a very effective substantial one — after months of inaction while unemployed has stayed near 10 percent:

Obama spoke in the Rose Garden after the August jobs report came out better than expected, showing the private sector adding 67,000 new jobs last month and revising upward the numbers from June and July. But unemployment ticked upward to 9.6 percent as more people entered the job market, and the president said it wasn’t good enough. . . .

Administration officials say a big new stimulus bill like last year’s $814 billion measure is not in the offing – nervous lawmakers looking to November’s balloting would not be expected to approve an expensive new measure. But Obama said he’d be proposing a new set of ideas next week. He’s likely to detail them during a speech on the economy Wednesday in Cleveland, midway through an economy-focused week capped by a rare White House news conference.

Obama’s package could include a number of provisions that have languished in Congress for much of the year, including infrastructure bonds for municipalities and extensions for a series of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that expired at the end of 2009.

What do these coincidentally similar events mean?  Maybe that Andrew Card was right back in 2002.

Or, perhaps it’s just that when don’t have enough firepower to win the battle, you save your bullets as long as you can.

It’s becoming a staple of the early days of any Democratic presidential campaign. Every eight years or so, some long-forgotten former candidate feels the itch for a comeback after a decade or more away from the national stage… and decides that America, once again, needs his leadership.

In 1984, it was George McGovern. In 1992, it was Jerry Brown. In 2004, apparently, it’s Gary Hart‘s turn.

An awkward realization, as Gary Hart remembers he left his “new ideas” in his other jacket.

These blast-from-the-past candidates always choose the same market niche, politically speaking. Renouncing the careful compromises and hedged stands of mainstream contenders, they position themselves as their party’s conscience, speaking truths that no one else dares. And so it is that Hart, who ran as a moderate pragmatist in the 1980s, is now speaking out firmly against the war in Iraq and George Bush’s reward-the-rich tax cuts. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Does he expect to win? Of course not. This script is already written: Hart will garner occasional media attention and the fervent support of some token college students hoping to find their generation’s Eugene McCarthy, finish in fifth place in the New Hampshire primary (as Brown and McGovern did), and go home — happy to have drummed up some future income from speaking engagements, perhaps a book, and any other rewards that come from recasting his image from hapless also-ran to principled elder statesman. Meanwhile, somewhere in Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis is looking ahead to 2008 and musing about the possibilities…