democratic national convention, it s in early june and the filing deadline for it is late so jerry brown looks around and decides in may of 1976, you know what? i ll go for it. i suppose vanity is a driver here. i wouldn t have run for president less than two years after i was governor if i didn t have a powerful drive to say hey, let s do this so i didn t. it s a friday afternoon. jerry calls three or four reporters over. i think just print reporters and has them sort of extract from him whether he s running for president. he says well something to the effect, i guess i am. sure i m a candidate. i ll be a candidate until the process reaches its conclusion. about 7:00 in the evening, gray davis said jerry just announced for president there is no committee. there has been no money raised. we didn t know he was going to announce. well we put a campaign together
california, largest state in the country. largest delegation to the democratic national convention, it s in early june and the filing deadline for it is late so jerry brown looks around and decides in may of 1976, you know what? i ll go for it. i suppose vanity is a driver here. i wouldn t have run for president less than two years after i was governor if i didn t have a powerful drive to say hey, let s do this so i didn t. it s a friday afternoon. jerry calls three or four reporters over. i think just print reporters and has them sort of extract from him whether he s running for president. he says well something to the effect, i guess i am. sure i m a candidate. i ll be a candidate until the process reaches its conclusion. about 7:00 in the evening, gray davis said jerry just announced for president there is no committee. there has been no money raised. we didn t know he was going to
california, largest state in the country twr country, primary is dead last. and jerry brown looks around and decides in may of 1976 you know what, i ll go for it. i suppose vanity is a driver there. the ambition is there. i wouldn t have run for president less than two years after i was governor if i didn t have a very powerful driechb to say let s do this. so i did it. it s a friday afternoon. jerry calls three or four reporters over, print reporters, and has them sort of extract from him whether he s running for president. and he said in effect i guess i am. the process reaches its conclusion. about 7:00 in the evening gray davis called me and said jerry just announced for president. there is no committee. there has been no money raised. we didn t know he was going to announce. well, we put a campaign together
nominations could thee crea s s be decided at conventions. so he jumps into the race for the democratic presidential nomination in may of 1976 and he starts winning. he wins in maryland, he wins in nevada, he wins, he wins big in california. too late for him to make the ballot in rhode island and new jersey, so tells voters to check off uncommitted on their ballots. uncommitted wins those states. jerry brown was a national political sensation in 1976. democrats across the country looked at him and saw a vibrant forward thinking breath of fresh air from the west coast. his plan had been used all of that late momentum from the late victories to steal the democratic nomination from jimmy carter at the convention. it was a long shot, but he actually came pretty close it pulling it off. the thing is, this was supposed to be just the start for jerry brown. if he didn t make it to the top in 1976, there would be another day. that s what everyone figured. it didn t quite work out that way. he