Political reporters have delighted in covering Jerry Brown's political campaigns through the years.

The reason for reportorial delight is that they do not have to strain for a story.  Brown supplies interesting copy by just listening to him and reporting what he has to say.

Brown, who launched a political comeback in California by initially becoming mayor of Oakland, then the state's attorney general, last week achieved the Democratic Party nomination for governor.

George Skelton, a political reporter for the Los Angeles Times, did a piece on Brown.  He mentioned that Brown has been quiet as of late, especially for him.  Skelton speculated that the reason could relate to Brown not wanting to provide a target for the opposition.

With the latest campaign finance report filings, we are getting a clearer picture of the 2010 California Governor primary on the Democratic side. As Shane Goldmacher of the Sacramento Bee reported:

Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Friday that he raised $3.4 million in 2008 in advance of an expected bid for governor in 2010. That sum leaves Brown, a Democrat, perched above his two declared Democratic rivals, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who each reported raising on the order of $1.1 million last year.

Brown's haul, combined with leftover cash from his 2006 election, leaves him with $4.1 million cash-on-hand, a total that dwarfs the roughly $750,000 available to Garamendi and the $540,000 available to Newsom at year's end.

Yet that doesn't give an accurate picture.

At a time when California, the nation's largest state population wise, has been experiencing crippling economic problems, two veterans of  accomplishment are ready to answer the bell and work toward a better future.

Jerry Brown was a visionary of the seventies who, in the tradition of visionaries with insight, was ridiculed while California's governor and referred to as "Governor Moonbeam".  What a compliment it is for a leader of vision and intelligence to be ridiculed by critics who falsely pose as instruments of knowledge.

At the same time that an incoming President Ronald Reagan's subordinates laughed openly and ordered taking down solar energy collectors from the White House roof that had been installed on the orders of predecessor Jimmy Carter, Brown was one of the few lonely voices in the land stressing the need for limiting consumption, restricting growth, and calling for intelligent future energy planning.

While making a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 it was Brown who agreed with former political rival Gore Vidal in seeking to  change the way that politicians are elected.  Brown took no contributions from lobbyists or corporations and ran a grassroots campaign with strenuously self-imposed contributions, all of which came from his citizen's corps of supporters.

With the latest campaign finance report filings, we are getting a clearer picture of the 2010 California Governor primary on the Democratic side. As Shane Goldmacher of the Sacramento Bee reported:

Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Friday that he raised $3.4 million in 2008 in advance of an expected bid for governor in 2010. That sum leaves Brown, a Democrat, perched above his two declared Democratic rivals, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who each reported raising on the order of $1.1 million last year.

Brown's haul, combined with leftover cash from his 2006 election, leaves him with $4.1 million cash-on-hand, a total that dwarfs the roughly $750,000 available to Garamendi and the $540,000 available to Newsom at year's end.

Yet that doesn't give an accurate picture.