Mr. Establishment

The New York Times looks from afar at Jerry Brown's quest to be attorney general of California—a quest that figures to take a big step forward with tomorrow's whuppin' of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo in the Democratic primary—and asks reasonably: "Could it be that Mr. Brown—a former Jesuit seminarian who once shared the limelight with Linda Ronstadt, then his girlfriend, tended to the poor with Mother Teresa, and fought The Man with his nonprofit political action committee We the People—is suddenly siding with (gulp) the establishment? It certainly sounds that way." Delgadillo gets in a word edgewise:

"He has been running this campaign and basically saying, 'I'm better known, you should vote for me,' " said Mr. Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney since 2001. "But name recognition is not going to protect California from gangs, from identity thieves or from child molesters."

Jerry, whose elective career began on the Los Angeles Community College board in 1969, explains himself in the piece—and I quote: "If you say I like politics, I like government, yeah: did Picasso like to paint? Did my father like to do this? Yes. Did he do it when I was born? Yes. Did he do it during my entire formative years? Yes. Does that have an impact? Probably."

Around the political horn: Neither Westly nor Angelides will spend election night in Los Angeles...Analysts Arnold Steinberg and Raphael Sonenshein will guest with Larry Mantle on KPCC this morning at 10:30, after Westly appears. Update: Bill Bradley advises that Westly has cancelled his San Francisco appearance and will be here at the Bonaventure on election night. Bradley also reports on a new Schwarzenegger bus tour to launch Wednesday.

Photo: Jeff Robbins/Associated Press (1974) and Victor Jose Cobo for The New York Times (2006)