File:Jerry w Steve '92 pres campaign at the Dem plat hearing m.jpg

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Governor Jerry Brown and presidential campaign advisor Steve Schmidt at the Democratic Party Platform hearings, 1992

• Brown campaign platform, 1992 (PDF)

Steven J. Schmidt / GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:

Personal Recollections by Steven Schmidt, 1992 Jerry Brown presidential campaign

(Green Institute, 2004)

"Platform in Progress"

Personal reflections of 1991/1992 campaign work with Governor Brown, shaping and presenting the campaign's platform

We called our platform a "Platform in Progress" and we presented a historic shift and political change

Opportunities to shift from nuclear weapons and global threats of the Cold War seemed real

• https://www.c-span.org/video/?27116-1/gov-jerry-brown-1992-convention-remarks

As the Cold War came to a sudden historic shift in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a debate over the future of conservative, liberal and progressive policy was joined. The Democratic party was at a crossroads and many looked at a future of new possibilities. Earlier work and discussions of war and peace issues with Jerry personally led me to a renewed interest in shaping future national policy. Another campaign with the Governor was set in motion.

My participation in the 1992 Governor Brown campaign for US president began with the establishment of the national office in Los Angeles.

I worked to set up issues, media, and correspondence. I had learned in a "school of hard knocks" in 1988 in Boston, while writing for the Dukakis campaign, that a 'war room' response team was necessary (even as the Clinton campaign in 1992 set up their own War Room with several of the Dukakis campaign veterans who experienced directly Atwater-Ailes type politics). The lessons learned were don't let political attacks go unattended and unanswered, Governor Dukakis refused to fight back immediately, telling staff he would 'take the high road' because the attack ads coming from the Atwater-Ailes-Bush campaign didn't deserve to be answered. So the attacks did their damage without effective, appropriate countering. This would not be the case in 1992 and so I worked to put together a "24 hour" system for response to attacks.

First came our campaign's policies on issues, taken from Governor Brown's own words in his speeches, transcribed and parsed for specific positions. We instituted a "24 hour turnaround" standard for dealing with the media and press. It was, in effect, a version of the Clinton campaign "War Room". Clarify and hit back, hit back hard against false charges and attacks.

I moved to become chair of the Brown campaign in New Mexico and focused on the national platform. Early in the campaign I proposed to draft a formal campaign platform and worked with the campaign and Governor directly to complete our platform document. Our 'out front' positions on issues ranged from the Governor's well-known calls for political reform across to a 'blue-green' agenda bringing together American workers with business in an environmental/economic agenda. With the Governor, I argued our positions and policies throughout 1991/92, in debates, and at the Democrat platform hearings and Convention...

From the Brown campaign platform to the founding US Green party platform

Transitioning from a US presidential campaign platform to a US and Global Green Platform

Steve Schmidt/GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: As a note for history and future political reference, a number of policies and positions in the Brown campaign moved forward into the founding Green Party platform which I began drafting in 1993, having moved from the Democratic party to independent status after the 1992 campaign. In 1996, the new Green platform served as a basis of first Green presidential campaign. This platform continued to evolve as your GreenPolicy siterunner drafted and chaired (1995-2001) the platform committee of the newly organized national Green party. The new "official" national founding platform document was approved in 2000 and placed into our Federal Election Commission national committee/party application (and archives) in 2001.

For more history on the founding Green Platform and Green Party, see US Green Platform

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January-February March 2016

Social Media comments by GreenPolicy360's Siterunner:

Today with the Sanders' campaign, we're witnessing a presidential campaign with many of the core themes of the 1992 Jerry Brown campaign for president.

"It's as if Bernie Sanders has chosen key elements from Jerry Brown's "Take Back America" 1992 campaign platform, position by position...

Key themes of Brown 1992 campaign carried forward in 2016

• Big money out of politics with campaign finance limits

• Political reform ... addressing voting, electoral restrictions

• Single-payer health care, a comprehensive program

• Environmental protection, emphasized international cooperation

• Reordered military priorities and security policy, nuclear non-proliferation

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SJS / I look back to being a senior advisor with Jerry, a close collaborator with him on our platform. At the top of our campaign, beginning with the announcement speech on the steps of Independence Hall, and everyday after, we spoke of money in politics and its 'undue influence' over most every critical element of policy -- from war and peace to health care.

>My first campaign with Jerry was in 1976 and I have pushed green issues now, as Jerry has, for over 40 yrs... Time flies as the saying goes and it feels appropriate that California is still out in front in green politics and policy -- no more 'Moonbeam' rap for Jerry. Mike Royko, who coined that term, long ago apologized as Calif w Jerry's vision and leadership continue to very much stay out in front of the modern environmental movement. Too bad Jerry's not younger. He'd be a great president.

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>Bernie Sanders does sound like our campaign in 1992 and our message and challenge to the Clinton campaign... what Sanders is saying about quid pro quo, w add-ons about Citizens United and Super PACs, is old, old news to me -- and there's not going to be much substantive change in DC as long as the pay-to-play, campaign finance/lobbying system as it is remains in place -- re pushing back money in politics reform proposals in '92, the reps of the Ds national org and Clinton campaign told me, and told me to tell the Brown campaign, that they weren't going to "unilaterally disarm" and they were moving to out raise and out do the Rs in the money game, and in many ways they have... it's about money in politics.... that's where policy comes from.

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Constructive Politics: Building a Political Vision over Time

SJS / Our 'We the People' platform spoke of political reform across a breadth of issues.... many green ideas we brought forward carry on in the founding US Green Party Platform, which your GreenPolicy siterunner was the key drafter, and Jerry and his ideas and agenda carried on in California. To this day, Governor Brown continues out in front with model green and progressive initiatives for change.

>Decades now, Jerry has been hard at work to make a difference and create, with vision, a better world. Here's a nod of our green hat to Jerry Brown -- a principled visionary.

Success of Jerry Brown, a California Vision

California offers lesson to Democrats

May 2016

By Adam Nagourney, New York Times political reporter

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: In 1992, Adam Nagourney covered the Brown v Clinton presidential campaign. As an advisor to Brown, I had many opportunities to interact w/ Adam and react to his campaign news coverage for USA Today. Adam was an exceptional reporter then and still is today in 2016 as a NYT senior political reporter and Los Angeles Bureau Chief...

Sacramento, California — When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium here the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels.

Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language.

“The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.”

As the Democratic presidential primary nears in California, it is easy to find in Mr. Sanders the kind of populist appeal that has long animated Mr. Brown, who ran for president in 1992 on a “We the People” pledge to accept no contribution over $100...

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Jerry_2013.jpg

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Governor_Jerry_Brown

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/California_out_in_front_in_a_Green_future