His 1980 campaign was particularly weird in its combination of positions. It was during the height of his "Governor Moonbeam" reputation, and combined a grab-bag of left-wing and right-wing proposals, mostly culturally left but economically right-ish. Strategically this might've been an attempt to paint both Carter and Ted Kennedy (the other main primary candidate) as old-fashioned: Carter as staid and culturally conservative, and Kennedy (who had proposed a single-payer health plan) as the big-government, big-spending liberal, with Brown as a new modern kind of liberal who balanced budgets while advocating for acupuncture, solar energy, organic farming, and space travel. Very "California ideology", but it didn't really work nationally.
His 1976 campaign by contrast was oddly similar to his current persona, a kind of center-left, pragmatic technocrat. The conventional wisdom seems to be that he only lost because Carter figured out quicker how to campaign in the new primary system (1976 was the first year that primaries rather than state conventions dominated) and racked up a bunch of early delegates.
His 1976 campaign by contrast was oddly similar to his current persona, a kind of center-left, pragmatic technocrat. The conventional wisdom seems to be that he only lost because Carter figured out quicker how to campaign in the new primary system (1976 was the first year that primaries rather than state conventions dominated) and racked up a bunch of early delegates.