By any measure, Jerry Brown has had an extraordinary public life that includes being California's youngest and oldest governors. He's gone from being a "Governor Moonbeam" who wore out his welcome with California voters in the 1980s to the elder statesman widely seen as a wise and steadying force in Sacramento.
He's run for president three times, losing all three times with differing degrees of success. But he said this week, "I enjoy running for president and I think I'd be a good president." But at 78, Brown knows that's not in the cards.
As he prepared to give a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention, I sat down with the governor at the City Tap House, a restaurant and bar not far from City Hall in Philadelphia.
The conversation started with grammar -- when I asked him "are you good?" he wondered aloud whether "good or well" was correct. "I use good, too," he said. "But should it be well?" Vintage Jerry Brown intellectual curiosity. When our conversation ended, I said, "Governor, be good and well."