Richard Reeves: There Was A Liberal

The unofficial motto of California, the greatest of American states, is "Give Me Men to Match My Mountains." Edmund "Pat" Brown never looked like a man of the mountains. In fact, at one of the many low points of his political career, the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Time magazine dubbed him "a tower of jelly."

That was one of the times Gov. Pat Brown tangled with the Kennedys. And, as usual, he came in second. He had this problem he could never do much about: He was a Roman Catholic who wanted to be president. It turned out, as we all know now, that was Kennedy turf.