F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s old lament that “there are no second acts in American lives” has been proven wrong on so many occasions that it’s not even worth discussing. Everyone knows America loves a good comeback story, and loves nothing more than rooting for an underdog. However, if one were to amend that old complaint with a Hobbesian twist — that there are second acts in American lives, but that they tend to be nasty, brutish and short — then they would be relatively on target.

It may or may not be a consequence of our (short) attention spans, but the fact is that American political history has spawned few examples of cross-generational difference makers — or even many part players. And there are even fewer comeback stories that span decades, as opposed to months or years.

Congressman Claude Pepper, a 1940s New Deal stalwart in the Senate who was went down to defeat in 1950 and re-emerged in much-muted form in the mid-’60s in Congress to serve until 1989, came close. Harold Stassen’s name was offered as a presidential candidate every four years between 1944 and 1992; unfortunately (and consequently) the once-substantial Minnesota governor is now remembered almost solely as a source of electoral comic relief, occasionally popping up as a cartoon pop-culture reference.

Thus, while the rest of the nation’s attention in 2010 will be attuned toward turning the midterm election results into snap judgments on the president, true connoisseurs of American political history may want to turn their eyes toward the California gubernatorial contest. Because as it stands today, mere days after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom pulled a Friday news dump to announce he was dropping out of the race, there’s nothing standing between current California Attorney Gen. Jerry Brown and another go as California chief executive — 27 years after last leaving that same office, and 35 years after he was elected to his first term.

It’s hard to overstate how shocking — and understated — this comeback has been. “Governor Moonbeam,” as he was nicknamed back in the ’70s, was at his most nationally relevant in 1976, when he represented the Democratic Party’s last hope to derail the candidacy of then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter before the 1976 Democratic National Convention. The current president was 15 year old then.

Brown was an adult when his father, “Pat” Brown, became the last man to ever defeat Richard Nixon in an election, in 1962; his career had crashed and burned long before he staged a vanity run in the 1992 Democratic primaries, when he succeeded in getting under Bill Clinton’s skin and inspired a cult of personality and a populist following within the party that Bill Bradley or Mike Gravel would have killed for.

None of that past and baggage (including unpopular stands against the death penalty), however, seems to have a hope of derailing Brown from coasting into the chief magistracy of America’s most populous state. Part of the credit for this is due to Brown, who patiently bided his time during his comeback, serving first as Mayor of Oakland and then as attorney general. Even more credit is due to his expected Democratic rivals — Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who managed to self-destruct before campaigning even began — and to the California Republican Party, which has failed to forge a viable identity for itself, either despite or because of almost two full terms of the “Governator.”

History, though, won’t care all that much about the precise context. Neither, likely, does Brown. Brown’s old problem wasn’t that he wasn’t smart enough, or talented enough, for the big stage; it was that once he made it there his obligations seemed to simply make him restless. After experiencing his heights of political relevancy during an era of small issues and the commencement of conservative dominance over national policy, however, Brown should finally be able to function at a high level in conditions favorable to him — under the presidency of an activist-minded Democrat, and during a financial crisis that calls for determined leadership.

When Brown took office in 1975, he did so as the immediate successor of a politician most have heard of — Ronald Wilson Reagan. Now the era of Reagan has finally faded, giving way to what progressives hope may become an Age of Obama.

For Brown, who came of age during the era of New Deal/Great Society liberalism, the year 2010 (during which he’ll turn 72) might finally represent the dawn of his political prime. Thus, while the example of Brown will soon become exhibit A in proving Fitzgerald hideously wrong about second acts in American lives, it may just vindicate another one of Fitzgerald’s writings — “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The question is, will Brad Pitt be available to play Jerry Brown 30 years from now?

Editorials Editor Asher Smith is a College junior from Great Neck, N.Y.