Why Jerry Brown Keeps Running

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As the collection basket passes through the crowd, Jerry Brown delivers a 45- minute homily on reclaiming the soul of the Democratic Party and bringing an end to "the whole stinking mess in Washington." His audience is 1,500 students, professors and supporters gathered at the college in Kalamazoo, Mich., where the student center is attached to a shopping mall. He blasts those at the top for prospering at the expense of those at the bottom, and condemns those he claims would send American jobs to low-wage Mexico. He says, "Thomas Jefferson said we need a revolution every 20 years. Well, it's been 200 years and it's time."

There are whoops of support and moments of pin-drop silence among these voters who did not make it onto the '80s gravy train. Although Michigan voters have almost nothing in common with this walking Experiment in Living, the antinuclear former seminarian who has washed lepers with Mother Teresa in India and studied Zen with Buddhists in Japan is showing surprising appeal. As the campaign enters mid-stretch, rank-and-file union members, independents, rainbow-coalition minorities and educated, maverick Democrats are giving the former two-term California Governor a chance to build on his victories in Colorado and Nevada and a virtual tie in Maine.

That Brown is still around to pick up this support confounds the experts who pronounced his candidacy dead on arrival due to terminal flightiness. In the first televised debate Dec. 15, he took out after moneygrubbing politicians, some of whom he said were onstage with him. He dared to step out of line and recite his now famous 800 number, angering debate master Tom Brokaw, who behaved as if anchorpersons deserved more respect than presidential candidates.

That behavior -- along with other instances of refusing to play by the rules -- assured that Brown would be thrown into a media black hole. The networks ignored Brown, who turned to the radio talk shows, filling the air with jeremiads against the confederacy of corruption, careerism and $1,000 campaign contributions. While his competitors travel in chartered jets and stay in hotels, he flies coach on scheduled airlines, sleeps on foldout couches, and is driven around by volunteers who mean well but have no sense of direction. Late for an important event two weeks ago, he broke into the motorcade of one of his rivals, oblivious to Secret Service agents wildly waving at him to get out. One reporter described the seat-of-the-pants Brown campaign as "a drive- by shooting."

Despite the chaos, many voters are identifying with Brown as the only candidate as disaffected as they are. His 13% flat-tax proposal with deductions only for mortgage interest, rent and charitable deductions, though deeply flawed, has found an audience among those who feel like chumps every April 15. His plan has the advantage of taking Congress out of the tax-break / business, and demolishing the industry of accountants and lawyers who guide the wealthy through 4,000 pages of loopholes, by reducing the average tax return to the size of a postcard.