THEN: Secretary of State (KY), 1996-2004; Candidate for Lieutenant Governor, 2007
NOW: JYB3 Group (Owner) -public affairs consulting firm; Miller Wells law firm (Of counsel)
Full Biography:link
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Oct 19, 2011 at 1:35 PM ET
Looking back on our lives, we are usually proudest of things we’ve done.
I’m perhaps proudest of something I stopped doing.
Although I rarely mention it, today is 26 years since I had my last drink of alcohol. It was an awfully good decision.
And I mention today because maybe some young person who is where I was 26 years ago will reach out for help. I’m glad I did. And grateful help was there….and more help is available today than ever before.
I won’t comment more on this but if anyone wants to message me personally, I’m happy to try to help.
(To send a confidential message to John, you can send an email to JYB3@TheRecoveringPolitician.com. That will go directly to John’s personal account.)
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Jul 5, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET
Two years ago I took the family to Los Angeles, CA for the first time—and for my second time in 25 years (since my sophomore year at USC).
We arrived at night and the family was hungry. I promised a nice dinner –but first we had to go by my favorite old haunt, Tommy’s Burger. I promised “Not to ruin my dinner” and to just buy a burger “to look at” (for old time’s sake) and maybe to “take just one bite.”
Oh….the stories we tell ourselves.
My family knew exactly what would happen…and each gave their version of the play-by-play the next day. At Fatburger! (My second favorite haunt):
UPDATE: A few of you have been having trouble accessing the video above. Here is another link.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 2:15 PM ET
In early 1995, one of my best friends, David Hale (now U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky) called me to see if I would help the campaign for Secretary of State of his law school classmate, John Y. Brown, III. I was certainly aware of Brown’s dad, the former chicken magnate and Governor, but my parents had opposed Brown Jr.’s last campaign, opting instead to support some guy named Steve Beshear.
Still, I was bored working as an associate for a big Washington law firm; David made a compelling case; and John, upon meeting, seemed like a nice, well-meaning, intelligent guy.
Somehow, as the only one in the room with a modicum of campaign experience, I was enlisted, pro bono, as the campaign’s media consultant. I wrote and directed a series of ads that, while extraordinarily amateurish, apparently didn’t hurt Brown too bad — he won both the primary and general elections by wide margins.
Most importantly, watch for the international television debut of my future running mate, John Y. Brown, IV, whose newfound mobility skills inspired the ad, and whose telegenic appearance cannot be underestimated for its vote-accruing effect:
The race is officially on. Less than 26 years before the filing deadline, we now have two slates running for Governor in 2037. You may have caught the RP’s announcement earlier today that he was running with 17-year-old John Y. Brown, IV as his running mate. Now read contributing RP John Y. Brown, III‘s statement in response:
Although we were hoping to keep our plans under wraps until 2036, it looks like [The RP] and Johnny have smoked out Emily’s ([The RP’s] daughter Emily, that is) and my plan to launch our campaign for Gov and Lt Gov (I’m running as #2….given I’ll be 74). We, too, were confused about the election calendar and were hoping to run in 2037-so that actually works out well and, given it’s not an official election year will likely discourage other tickets from running that year. I suspected Johnny’s issue of furloughed school days will play well with the younger set….although Emily and I view it as pandering to the youth vote. We will counter that platform with something that involves deficit reduction and job creation and tie it to something that is pro-puppies (Emily thinks this is important and I suspect puppies will poll well in 2037). Game on!
Thoughts? Do you have a favorite ticket? Other ideas for candidates? Did you read Brown’s column about political addiction yesterday and are jonesing to jump in the race yourself?
Please use the comment section below to make any statements, announcements, etc.:
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Apr 11, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
When Jonathan Miller told me about his idea of starting a website titled The Recovering Politician, I thought it was a clever concept—-a partly tongue-in-cheek, partly insightful look at life after elective office. There is the famous last scene in the film The Candidate where Robert Redford’s character, a charismatic underdog running for the US Senate, pulls out a narrow upset against an entrenched incumbent. Just before his acceptance speech he ducks into a small room to avoid the throng of supporters cheering him on. He wants a moment alone with his campaign manager whose sole purpose in life is to win political campaigns. The Candidate, looking perplexed, looks up and solemnly asks, “What do we do now?”(Click on Redford’s mug to view the scene.)
It’s an “Aha” moment for the audience that what primarily drives some of our political candidates may not be the privilege of toiling over mundane public policy day in and day out, but rather to “win” some kind of overdramatized contest and the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. (Think of the hit TV series the Apprentice that follows job applicants for months going through a variety of ordeals until one is finally told by Donald Trump, “You’re hired.” We never find out—or care, for that matter—how the winner actually performs on the job.) Political candidates often get similar treatment from voters and the media. We treat business and politics as part sport and part theater.
But The Recovering Politician asks a slightly different and more personally poignant question: When one’s political yearnings have been squelched, dashed, sated, or otherwise drummed out of him or her, doesn’t every ex-politician go into that same small room ––this time alone—and ask, “Now what do I do?” The answer, of course, is yes —and the choices ex-politicos make to create meaning in their lives post-politics is more interesting and hopeful than one might think. The Recovering Politician blog explores this area in hopes of humoring and humanizing the reader—and the subjects.
Looking back on our lives, we are usually proudest of things we’ve done.
Follow John Y: