Brown Assails Clinton Link to Moderates

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. —  Democratic presidential candidate Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. went back on the attack against rival Bill Clinton on Tuesday, criticizing the Arkansas governor for the key role he played in an organization that has been pushing the party to moderate its views.

Brown, former governor of California, charged that the Democratic Leadership Council was undermining the Democratic Party’s commitment to traditional liberal principles. Brown termed the group “as close to Republicanism as you can become and still be able to use the label Democrat .”

Clinton chaired the council until resigning to launch his presidential quest last summer.

After several days of virtually ignoring Clinton and focusing on his own message of reform, Brown shifted to the attack as he campaigned in western Pennsylvania for support in the state’s primary next Tuesday.

Brown urged Pennsylvania voters to become a “voice of insurgency” and help him score a come-from-behind victory over Clinton that would derail the front-runner’s route to the nomination.

The DLC, whose members include governors and current and former members of Congress, was formed in the mid-1980s by Democratic leaders worried that the party had slid too far to the left in matters of social policy and national security.

But Brown blasted the group for turning its back on a variety of programs that are central to the party’s longtime support for government activism.

The DLC, he said, “didn’t embrace a national health care system as a matter of right. It didn’t embrace investing in the cities . . . . It was trying to avoid all that to become as close to Republicanism as you can become and still be able to use the label Democrat .”

Brown in the past has denounced the DLC for accepting contributions from corporations and for supporting a free-trade agreement with Mexico. Brown strongly opposes fast-track negotiations toward such an agreement, arguing that the accord could result in heavy job losses in the United States.

Speaking before about 400 people in historic but fraying Johnstown--where thousands of steelworkers have lost jobs in recent years--Brown reiterated his pledges to create a national health care program, invest federal money in rebuilding decayed urban areas and prevent American jobs from being moved to foreign countries by large corporations.

He argued that “greed, campaign contributions and a corrupt political Establishment” have kept Congress from passing a national health care program.

Brown labeled Clinton a pillar of the “greedy elite” that he said controls American politics for its own benefit. “You have no interest in a candidacy that is bought and paid for” by such an elite, Brown said.

Referring to his former job as California Democratic Party chairman--a role in which he solicited donations for party activities--Brown acknowledged that he was once a part of the same Establishment that he now decries.

“I’ve raised the money; I’ve been a part of this politics; I know,” he said. But “a lot of people have urged me never to tell you what I know to be the truth. They want the system to keep going in its failing way.”