Opinion: Jerry Brown for vice president? Why not?

Now that Hillary Clinton appears to have a lock on the Democratic primary, speculation has turned to whom she will pick as a running mate.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been called the “obvious candidate” because she was talking about economic justice long before Bernie hit the campaign scene. And though it would certainly be a historic race with two women on the Democratic ticket, Warren doesn’t seem the sidekick type.

Other names tossed around include Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro. Surprisingly, there’s one I haven’t heard in the mix: Jerry Brown.

I’m not sure why. Maybe it is his age. Brown just turned 78, and despite the longevity in his family (his mother lived to 93; his father, former Gov. Pat Brown, to 90), it is on high side. Vice President Joe Biden is 73. Or maybe it’s just the usual East Coast bias that makes it hard for the political media establishment to see anything west of the Mississippi.

Brown seems an obvious candidate to me. He will be halfway through his fourth and final term as California governor when the next president is sworn in, and it has been a successful run. (We gave him a B-plus last fall, the highest grade of all our politician report cards last year.)

There are reasons that Clinton would be wise to consider Brown as VP — starting with the fact that so many young Democrats seem to relish having a cranky septuagenarian lecture them about the correct way to think.

* He’s a known and comfortable brand, like Campbell’s Soup or Starbucks. That’s probably because he has been around longer than many voters have been alive — since his first two terms as governor in the 1970s. In fact, he’s arguably the best-known Democratic U.S. governor since the guy who held this spot before him, that actor, what’s his name? And because California is a global economic force, Brown already comes with an international profile that’s rare among state officials.

* He’s got GOP appeal. Brown is famously fiscally conservative in a famously liberal state. He accomplished what his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, could not, namely rein in the profligate spending of state lawmakers. In the past six years, Brown (with the help of the economic rebound) has turned a gigantic deficit into a balanced budget with a rainy-day fund, and he still has the support of his Democratic colleagues. Even Republicans kinda like him, even if they can’t stand his bullet train. A Jerry Brown on the ticket might be the bone that on-the-fence Republicans need to overcome years of anti-Clinton rhetoric.

* He’s funny. Like Biden, Brown could lighten up the presidential ticket with his you-never-know-what-he’s going-to-say approach. Unlike Biden, however, Brown is witty, rather than goofy. His handlers don’t have to worry that Brown will inadvertently offend or embarrass. Brown speaks like a human — if that human were a puckish philosophy professor with a penchant for Latin and a sharp tongue.

* He is post-partisan. President Obama talked a big game about transcending partisan politics, but he never managed to soften the unified Republican front assembled against him. Without the right person at her side, Clinton probably won’t either.

Sure, Brown has that “D” behind his name, but his actions appear to be driven by a deep-seated political philosophy that his little to do with the party’s agenda. He is cautious about, but not outright opposed to, taxes. He supports tough green house emissions, but he is leery of over-regulation. And while he clearly believes in the duty of the government to protect the vulnerable, he understands that government can’t solve every problem. He even has a track record decentralizing government by pushing down responsibility and power to the local level, from decisions about how to lock up bad guys to how to spend education funding.

The real question is whether Jerry Brown would want the job. He’s a hard guy to read; he hasn’t even endorsed a candidate in the primary yet. But Brown has had presidential aspirations, running three times for the job since 1980. So this could be it — his last best chance at the White House.