THIS TIME, JERRY BROWN WANTS TO BE A LAWMAN

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In his nearly four decades in American politics,
Jerry Brown has been a lot of things to a lot of people: a two-term
California governor, a three-time presidential candidate and, most
recently, the mayor of Oakland, this Rodney Dangerfield-like city
across the bay from San Francisco.

But now, Mr. Brown is trying to become something that no one who
remembers the freewheeling days of "Governor Moonbeam" could possibly
expect: a lawman.

And not just any lawman. Mr. Brown -- faced with a mayoral term-limit
- -- is running for attorney general of California, the nation's most
populous state and one where hot-button wedge issues like immigration,
medical marijuana and same-sex marriage are constantly simmering for
law enforcement officials and politicians alike.

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.

"The attorney general owes a duty of loyalty to his client, and his
client is the governor and people of California," Mr. Brown said
Friday in his Oakland campaign office. "And as attorney general, I'll
have no hesitation in carrying out that law, whether it is capital
punishment, bars on same-sex marriage or collective bargaining or
anything else."

That Mr. Brown, 68, is running to fill a law-and-order post that is
beholden to the demands of other state officials -- not to mention
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican -- might surprise those who
remember his maverick, on-my-own 1992 presidential bid. That was his
most recent venture on the national political stage. (And his last, he
says.) But as the mayor of Oakland since 1999, Mr. Brown has largely
run, and delivered, on a promise to crack down on violent crime, which
has plagued the city.

Mr. Brown says that his experiences living in downtown Oakland, in a
loft above his campaign headquarters, have given him an up-close look
at the problem.

"Seven people have been killed within five blocks of here," Mr. Brown
said. "Downstairs, we had an armed robbery, first with a gun, then
with a knife. I've seen bodies on my street out here. This is serious
stuff. This is not about politics, or rhetoric. It's about survival."

Of course, politics is also all about survival, and in recent weeks
Mr. Brown's record has taken a hit as Oakland's murder rate has
suddenly and inexplicably surged, a development the mayor says he is
"moving heaven and earth" to correct before he leaves office.

Still, the increase in crime, including the killing of two teenagers
just before Memorial Day weekend, has given Mr. Brown's opponents some
much needed ammunition. Recent polls find Mr. Brown holding a hefty
lead over his Democratic rival, Rocky Delgadillo, in Tuesday's
primary, but Mr. Delgadillo and the potential Republican nominee,
Chuck Poochigian, have been hammering at Mr. Brown's reputation as
both a child of privilege -- his father, Edmund Sr., was also a
two-term governor -- and a man out of touch with the concerns of
today's Californian.

"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."

Mr. Brown's record has also been gently criticized by some of the
candidates to succeed him in Oakland, which has a racially diverse
population of 400,000 and a chronic self-esteem problem. The mayoral
race, which also has its primary on Tuesday, features another icon of
California politics, the former congressman Ron Dellums, competing
against two City Council members, Ignacio De La Fuente and Nancy J.
Nadel.

Mr. Brown says his tough-on-crime rhetoric is not simply an
election-year conversion, and he can produce tough-on-crime speeches
from his days as governor (1975 to 1983) to prove it.

One issue political opponents have seized on is Mr. Brown's lifelong
opposition to the death penalty, a position perhaps most famously
illustrated in 1960 when he passionately lobbied his father, then
governor, to spare the life of the convicted rapist Caryl Chessman.
His father did stay the execution, but later allowed Mr. Chessman to
die in the gas chamber.

While Mr. Brown admits that his personal exploits may have sometimes
overshadowed his accomplishments, he takes exception to the widespread
idea that he is anything like the oddball politician the columnist
Mike Royko dubbed "Governor Moonbeam" in the late 1970's after Mr.
Brown suggested that California launch its own satellite. (Mr. Royko
apologized many years later and retracted the nickname.)

"I think it's a misnomer," Mr. Brown said. "Am I creative? Yes. Did I
bring in wind machines so that California had 90 percent of the
world's wind power? Yes. Did I go out with Linda Ronstadt? Yes. Did I
take her to Africa? Yes. Did that create a little excitement? Yes.
O.K., it's true. But now, well, I'm a married man."

Sure enough, last summer Mr. Brown married his longtime girlfriend,
Anne Gust, a vice president of Gap Inc., putting to an end one of the
nation's most celebrated political bachelorhoods. Now gray at the
temples and smooth on top, Mr. Brown still has the fiery oratorical
style and tendency for offhand comments that made him a political star
- -- and occasionally a political liability.

He still likes a fight: on Friday, after addressing a group of police
cadets, he hopped a flight to Los Angeles to sit for an interview for
Fox News -- "Why would you not be on Bill O'Reilly?" he said --
seizing an opportunity to pound on the Oakland School Board for an
effort to grant diplomas to nonqualified seniors.

Mr. Brown says he will not rule out another political run after this
one -- though he says he has no more presidential ambitions. But he
still loves politics, and makes no apologies for his seeming electoral
addiction.

"If you say I like politics, I like government, yeah: did Picasso like
to paint?" he said, barking a bit as his left leg bounded up and down
with nervous energy. "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."

He lists a few more accomplishments on his resume, before summing up
the reason Californians should vote for him one more time. "I think
that my experiences will deepen my insight into the law," he said.
"And I've had rather unique life experiences."