REAGAN: The Political Chameleon

Pat Brown's appraisal of the man who beat him in the 1966 California gubernatorial race is unequivocal: Reagan would amount to a ""national disaster"" as President. An update of Brown's earlier Reagan and Reality (1970), this is an ardent blast at the man with the talent for the ""grisly bon mot."" (During the free food scramble after the Patty Hearst kidnapping Reagan commented, ""It's too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism."") Brown believes that Reagan is not just another Goldwater because he is the slickest embodiment yet of ""the new two-dimensional television politics"" of packaged images. Brown sees Reagan's characterization of himself as an ""amateur"" or ""citizen politician"" as a sinister phenomenon--a camouflage for Reagan's simplistic positions on just about everything from welfare programs to ecology to taxes to crime. And scrutinizing Reagan's track record in California, Brown finds that, rhetoric notwithstanding, he was ""neither a budget-slasher nor a tax-cutter."" Not a profound critique, either politically or psychologically, but an urgent, partisan warning from a Democratic stalwart.