Jerry Brown
Stephen Lam/Getty

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA —Nearly a half-century on the national stage surely entitles a leader to some valedictory words, and if Jerry Brown were a conventional politician one could easily imagine what those words might be:

Though the sun is setting on my time of public service, it will always be rising for this great state et cetera, et cetera, and though we face daunting challenges let me assure you that I have never been more optimistic about the endless promise of blah, blah, blah.

But if Jerry Brown were a conventional politician he would never have been on the national stage for a half-century. He would have been shooed off it several decades ago, to a chorus of mockery about his supposedly eccentric style and mournful commentary about faded promise and what might have been.

Instead, at age 80, Brown is leaving the governorship of the nation’s largest state in a few hours, at noon on Monday. If this departure seems a bit reluctant—he pauses slightly, before demurring when […]