Can Jerry Brown calm street protests?

California Gov. Jerry Brown is in a unique and enviable position, as far as politicians go. He’s old but vigorous. He’s popular but idiosyncratic. He’s the master of Sacramento, but he’s beholden to no one. He hardly even had to campaign for re-election. He got everything he wanted and more. Now what?

It would seem Gov. Brown’s own answer to that question involves a series of not-so-glamorous structural changes to the California economy. For the governor, that means a big new water bond, a big new high-speed rail system and, beyond that, a modest series of adjustments to the excesses of liberal governance. Simple. Straightforward. And, above all, quiet.

The older, wiser Jerry Brown isn’t a shouter. Yet, in his old stomping grounds in the East Bay, where he enjoyed serving as mayor of Oakland, the streets are positively seething with confrontation. In Oakland and Berkeley, protests surrounding race and police relations have come to a dangerous and troubling point. Especially for a liberal governor who came of political age amid the street violence of the Democrats’ 1968 national convention, the time has come for leadership.

Will Gov. Brown provide it? The protests would pull him away from his zen-like agenda, to be sure. But as a hometown hero with a calm core and progressive credibility, he can muster a degree of authority with the protesters — and police — that is second to none. At a time when frustrations on the left have led to defenses of looting and profane diatribes against cops, Gov. Brown ought to bring his flower power to bear, defusing a situation the could spiral far out of control.

It’s not about convening blue-ribbon panels or trotting out experts to explain the problem to death. It’s about calling on Californians to control their rancor. If Gov. Brown can’t do it, what leading Democrat will?

— Orange County (Calif.) Register