So no one should be surprised how fast the worlds of Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman are moving in opposite directions.

No Easy Task

First, the governor-elect. Brown begins today a one week vacation, after which he says he'll be nose-to-the-grindstone on the state budget. And he's got his work cut out for him in Sacramento.

As I reported in two separate radio stories since Tuesday for The California Report, the worlds of state government and Capitol politics are far different today than when the Democratic governor-elect left his future job in 1983.

First, the mess that is state government. Brown may have been fond of telling audiences during the campaign that he's been in "the kitchen" of government before, but that kitchen is now full of dirty dishes and broken or off-limits appliances. Just consider this partial list of budgetary laws enacted since he left: a constitutional guarantee on school funding levels, restrictions (and after Tuesday, an apparent ban) on borrowing cash from local governments; taxes on tobacco and millionaires earmarked for specific purposes and non-transferable without voter approval. And that's not even taking into consideration the effects of Proposition 13, not yet fully realized when he left, or things like term limits and federal court control of prison health care.

"It's an entirely different state," said Mark Paul, senior scholar at the New America Foundation and co-author of a recent book on the state's dysfunction and reform needs. He says it's not just the levers of government; it's also those who hope to grease the movement of those levers. "Jerry is coming into a Sacramento that has five times more lobbyists than when he left, spending 10 times more money," said Paul.

California is also much more diverse and populated in the almost three decades since Brown was governor; official state data shows the population alone has grown by a third since 1983.

And then there's the oh-so-beloved California Legislature, and the experiences of the last two governors in trying to find, as Brown defined it on Wednesday, "unity and clarity out of muddle and division."

But today's legislators share little with those of the past; they are less experienced, more politically polarized, and -- perhaps -- not as awed by the power of governors.

"He's going to find a Legislature that's much less interested in what a governor thinks, and much more interested in what the special interests think," said former GOP legislator Jim Brulte during a Sacramento post-election event on Thursday. Both Brulte and Susan Kennedy, chief of staff to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said that the state's powerful interest groups, on the left and right of the political spectrum, have the money and muscle that can overshadow a governor's influence on rank and file lawmakers.

And Brown, a Democrat who will end seven years of Republican chief executive opinions, could find his biggest foils to be fellow Democrats. Garry South, the political consiglieri to former guv Gray Davis, said this week that Dems often jammed the moderate Davis with a bill that he "was either damned if he signed it or damned if he vetoed it." There have been a number of Democratic priorities that have been vetoed these last few years, from single payer health care to drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. Brown's victory Tuesday night came after a campaign in which he made clear that he would be a pragmatist, not an ideologue; will his more liberal Democratic allies support that agenda?

Defending The Meg-A-Disaster

It's been a relatively quiet few days for those involved in the campaign of Meg Whitman. Some are looking for jobs, others taking a long delayed vacation, others... going on national TV.

This morning, top Whitman strategist Mike Murphy was invited to opine on Tuesday's election results on NBC's Meet The Press. For the most part, the veteran operative stuck to talking about the big victory for the national GOP. But after a few minutes, moderator David Gregory asked Murphy about Whitman's Poseidon Adventure:

Murphy's promise to take responsibility for the loss notwithstanding, he seemed to offer a number of excuses for what happened -- some which don't square with the facts. Though he says California is a "very blue state and it's getting bluer," the official registration data shows that there's only been a small uptick of the percentage of Democrats of late but an overall steady decline since 1994. The bigger problem for a GOP candidate like Whitman is how small her party has become --now only three in ten voters are Republicans.

Murphy also said that "we could win the Republicans (and) win the independents" but not Democrats. Well, the Tuesday exit poll cast doubt on this excuse, too. If that survey is accurate, or close to accurate, Whitman's showing among independent voters would still have needed to be by a larger margin -- similar to Schwarzenegger in 2003 and 2006 (Murphy's former client). She also seemed to do badly with Republicans, both those who apparently voted for Brown and those who didn't show up. That last point is especially important; as I wrote on Tuesday morning, Republican politicos like Murphy were adamant that the GOP turnout would be 34% or more of the electorate. Not so.

And while he also said that voters across the nation weren't buying CEO candidates selling "tough medicine," he also dismissed the issue of Whitman's Meg-a-spending. Saying the public employee unions "run California politics" (except when they don't -- 2003 recall, 2006 gubernatorial, just to name two elections outside of Murphy's losing experiences in 2005 and Tuesday), he then said, "if you're a self-funder, the press then wants to make that money the issue."

Murphy suggested a time machine might provide a different outcome. Perhaps, then, he'll take solace in the final Whitman video released online a few days ago... a gauzy, feel good look at the effort, where some of the folks saying "Thank You!" to the camera appear to be, in fact, paid campaign staffers.

Update 7:50 p.m. A valuable caveat pointed out by Calbuzz scribe Phil Trounstine: the exit poll is not a reliable way to determine whether or not Whitman actually eeked out a win among independents. As such, the paragraph above has been modified from its original wording. --JM

If you love politics, it's a great story.

Gavin Newsom's announcement that he is abandoning his race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination came, like any political bombshell, on a Friday afternoon.

"With a young family and responsibilities at [SF] city hall," said hizzoner's emailed statement at 3:02 p.m., "I have found it impossible to commit the time required to complete this effort the way it needs to — and should be — done." Newsom, who became a first time dad a little more than a month ago, went on to thank his supporters and to pledge to keep fighting the good fight.

Was it surprising? Yes and no. No, in that the campaign had struggled to find the needed cash for such a huge race. Campaign finance reports through June 30 show the Newsom gubernatorial effort had raised $1.7 million but already spent almost $1.6 million; records since then, though incomplete, continued to paint an uphill climb in the battle for bucks. And yes, Newsom may be feeling the tug of family and his still demanding job running the city by the Bay.

Worth noting is what now seems to be a telling moment: Newsom's campaign guru, Garry South, was quoted yesterday by the Los Angeles Times as offering a seemingly full-throated endorsement for Republican candidate Tom Campbell. Did South know his horse was pulling out of the race?

Still, the news did come as a surprise given that the charismatic pol seemed to have thrown himself full tilt into the race; he now has more than 1.2 million followers on Twitter, and has used social networking aggressively in his courting of younger voters. And let's face it, those of us in the political press relished the generational guv storyline of Newsom battling the iconic Jerry Brown, the two-term governor/presidential candidate/Oakland mayor/attorney general.

For his part, Brown wasted no time in releasing his own statement, which said simply: "Mayor Newsom is a talented public official and I believe he has a bright future. I am sure this was not an easy decision."

Of course, Brown isn't technically a candidate for his old job. In the longest running cat-and-mouse game in recent political memory, the 71-year-old with a name ID maybe only second to Arnold Schwarzenegger (maybe higher!) refuses to yet call himself a candidate... going only so far as to create an "exploratory" campaign.

Newsom's decision leaves Jerry Brown in the driver's seat -- not just for the Democratic nomination but, according to the polling, for the whole enchilada. And, in a case of truly awkward timing, the Newsom story broke on the single worst day of the Brown-as-attorney-general era, as the AG's office scrambled to explain why a top aide was recording conversations with journalists without consent -- something even us journos know is illegal in California.

And now, a brief departure into the squishy gossip of this story... namely, that Newsom may be interested in running for lieutenant governor next year. The idea has been knocked down a thousand times by those close to the San Fran mayor, and by Newsom himself. "Spare the speculation," tweeted Newsom adviser Jason Kinney tonight. Fair enough, but consider this: if Brown should run and win, he would be 73 just three months after taking office. Would he really run for a second term at 77? Or might he step aside in 2014, leaving the job to... well... a seasoned and high-profile lieutenant governor?

And for that matter, what would a John Garamendi victory next Tuesday in his race for Congress do to this game? Governor Schwarzenegger would get to appoint an interim 'Lite Guv,' but Dems in the Legislature would have to give their blessing. Garamendi's chances look good; would the GOP guv appoint a placeholder? Would he appoint a Dem? If so, would that Dem want the job in next year's election? Would all of that finally silence the Newsom for LG chatter?

That's just a bit of the parlor game, mind you. But for political junkies, this story isn't going anyway anytime soon.