RATHER PUNCH ME SOME HIPPIES THAN CRY WITH THE SAINTS

Cause the California Hippie-Punchers have more fun...

Jerry Brown said Friday that if elected governor he would have to "do things that labor doesn't like," including cutting pension benefits for public employees and asking labor leaders to "put everything on the table" to get California's bloated budget under control.


"If you're looking for frugality, I'm your man," the California attorney general and former two-term governor said in a meeting with The Chronicle's editorial board. When he was governor from 1975 to 1983, he said, "I vetoed the pay raises for the state employees not once, but twice. I was overridden by 23 Republican votes.


"I called for the two-tier pension system in 1982," added Brown, 72. "Of course, the next four governors didn't do anything. I'm willing to get in the battle."


To deal with the state's budget mess, he said, "everybody's going to be in a big room" and make some compromises. "You're going to have to do some things that organized labor doesn't like. Everybody's got to get outside their comfort zone."

What? You thought Jerry Brown was going to make fewer cuts than Arnold or Meg Whitman?

That's funny. If anything, Brown's going to be under so much pressure as a Democrat that he's not a dirty hippie -- Jerry Brown, folks? Moonbeam? Remember? -- that he's going to have to make Arnold look like a liberal.

He's just setting up the pins now so he can knock 'em down after the election.