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Edmund G. Brown Jr., 36. Once a candidate for the priesthood, "Jerry" Brown is now the Democratic candidate for Governor of California. The bachelor son of former Governor Edmund G. ("Pat") Brown chose to switch from a Jesuit seminary to Yale Law School in the early 1960s, became a civil rights activist and antiwar crusader. By using the long-ignored power of his office—secretary of state—to implement campaign reform, he soon began making a name of his own, most recently by launching a well-publicized investigation into President Nixon's tax returns. Stiffer than his convivial father, he is nonetheless winning strong support as an outspoken reformer.
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J. Carter Brown, 39. Washington's National Gallery of Art welcomes more than 2 million visitors a year and influences more people than any other U.S. fine arts institution. "We have a mandate to serve more people than those who are able to come through our doors," says Brown, a Harvard-educated native of Providence who became director in 1969 after eight years on the staff. Under his stewardship the gallery has expanded an art extension service so that exhibits reach 4 million people a year in 4,000 U.S. communities. He has also begun a building program that will double the museum's size and provide space for a contemporary American art collection and advanced study center.
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Willie L. Brown Jr., 40, chairman of the California assembly's ways and means committee, is one of his state's most powerful lawmakers. Since entering the assembly in 1965, the liberal Democrat from San Francisco has had little trouble winning reelection, in 1972 rolled up 76% of his well-integrated district's vote after spending only $192. Brown, who sponsored more bills that were vetoed by Governor Ronald Reagan than any other legislator (including one to decriminalize homosexuality and another to ban discrimination by real estate agents), co-chaired his state's delegation to the Democratic Convention in 1972 and figures as a leading contender for mayor of San Francisco should he choose to run next year.
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Patrick Buchanan, 35, was the first full-time aide Richard Nixon hired as he began to assemble his presidential campaign team in 1966. A Georgetown graduate and former editorialist for the right-leaning St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Buchanan remains the President's most pugnacious defender. While serving as idea man, speechwriter, press adviser and political consultant to Nixon, he has emerged as one of the nation's leading conservative ideologues. Despite his often acerbic defense of the Administration, he has retained the admiration of those conservatives who are dismayed by his boss.
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Josiah Bunting, 34, joined the Marines at 17 after he was expelled from prep school. Finding his métier in the military, the Philadelphia-born Bunting entered Virginia Military Institute and earned an Army commission, a Rhodes scholarship and a disillusioning tour of duty in Viet Nam. While teaching history at West Point, "Si" Bunting wrote a bestselling antimilitary novel based on that experience (The Lionheads). In 1972 he resigned from