From Press-Telegram:

When Jerry Brown was serving his first stint as governor 30 years ago – but perhaps not his last – he gained a well-deserved reputation for changing positions as easily as most folks change their socks.

The most striking manifestation of Brownian motion was when he denounced Proposition 13, the landmark property tax measure, as “a rip-off” before the 1978 election and then declared himself to be a “born-again tax cutter” afterward and slashed state taxes. Brown shrugged off criticism of his political pirouettes, once saying, “Nothing in life is so rigid that there aren’t developments. That’s true in politics. That’s true in theology. That’s true in personal relations. And for those small minds that slavishly adhere to foolish consistency, their irrelevance is their best reward.”

Nevertheless, as his second term neared its close, he flip-flopped one last time and paid the ultimate political price – voter rejection. Brown had refused to order spraying when the state was infested with Mediterranean fruit flies, saying, “I’m getting a bit bugged by this bug,” but then, faced with pressure from farmers and the legislature, he flipped 180 degrees and ordered spraying.

A year later, voters soundly rejected Brown’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat and he left office with a final – and quite accurate – observation, to wit: “I think people got tired of my voice. They got tired of seeing me on television … and frankly, I got a little tired of it.”

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