Gravitas is the single attribute most essential for any new California attorney general to be taken seriously and operate effectively.

Almost no one running for President ever campaigns in California once the February primary election is over. This state is so strongly assumed to be true-blue Democratic that voters here don’t even see the most inventive, interesting and controversial campaign commercials.

From almost the moment in 2008 that voters passed Prop. 1A and authorized $9.9 billion in state bonds for a high speed rail (HSR) system spanning much of the state, opposition became loud and determined.

Gov. Brown now wants to put a single budget-balancing proposition before voters in a June special election to “let the people decide” how to solve the state’s persistent financial problems.

While almost all California’s political attention this winter is focused on the state’s seemingly never-ending budget crisis and the severe cuts it will cause in most government programs, few have been heeding an ongoing catastrophe with even greater long-term implications – the school dropout problem.

There’s no doubt about it:

The one element of Gov. Brown’s proposed state budget producing the most protest and the quickest action so far is his plan to eliminate local redevelopment agencies (RDAs).

Special interests have seemingly been crying from every rooftop in California from the moment Gov. Jerry Brown issued his first proposed state budget days after taking the oath of office.

When all its candidates for statewide office lost in last fall’s election, most by large margins, it was easy to presume that the California Republican Party was left with no “bench,” no corps of promising potential future candidates from which to draw in future votes.

California has seen Jerry Brown the Roman Catholic seminarian and Jerry Brown the experimenter with Zen Buddhism and Jerry Brown the visionary (remember “small is beautiful” and the “era of limits”?). There also have been Jerry Brown the tough lawman and Jerry Brown the skilled political mechanic.

No California governor serving his last few days in office ever has been more concerned about his legacy than was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Perhaps this was because unlike Ronald Reagan or Pat Brown or Pete Wilson in their last days, he has few possibilities for future elected office.