Jerry Brown Again? Some Calif. Dems Express Unease

JULIET WILLIAMS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Jerry Brown hasn't formally announced for his old job, but the signs show he once again has his eye on the California governor's chair.

The current attorney general has emerged as the Democrat's presumed candidate in 2010 with just seven months to go to the primary.

The 72-year-old politician finds himself in that position after the field of contenders exited in the face of a stealth fundraising campaign and his near universal name recognition.

It's not the spot in which the majority party in a state as diverse as California had expected to be in, just a year after a grassroots groundswell helped give Barack Obama the biggest margin of victory in a California presidential election since at least World War II.

The seeming inevitability of Brown's candidacy has left some Democrats nervous about what his campaign might produce. He is famously independent, often unpredictable and his views are not as well known as his name to many of today's voters. He has also mostly stayed out of the debate about the state's massive fiscal crisis.