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.

Some say the feud between Nancy Pelosi and Ellen Tauscher has always existed. Some say that it that it is a Hatfield-McCoy stories that goes back generations in east coast politics. But one thing is clear, it erupted in the press during the summer of 2001: