While back in Kansas City I met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in years-- Lisa. She's fun, very political, stridently liberal, and oh-so-focused on fashion. Anyway, she was wondering what was going on with her favorite presidential candidate of 1992-- Jerry Brown of Oakland (she was for him; I was for Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts; all this during the primary before Clinton went on to win). Anyhoo, she may find this article interesting. While I think it shorts his political power a bit since I think he still could try and run for U.S. Senate in the near future (at one point there was talk of him running against Senator Barbara Boxer in the Democratic primary next year-- he better not!), it does make for an interesting interpretation of his need to get Oakland moving forward again.