LOS ANGELES (AP) - Democrat Jerry Brown was elected California
governor on Tuesday in an extraordinary political encore, defeating
billionaire Republican Meg Whitman and the $142 million she spent
of her own fortune to reclaim the office he held a generation ago.

The 72-year-old state attorney general's victory leaves him with
the enormous task of lifting the state out of a recession and
joblessness.

"Jerry's certainly up to it. The people of California made a
good choice," said his campaign spokesman, Sterling Clifford.

Several hundred Brown supporters who had gathered at the
historic Fox Theater in Oakland began chanting "Jerry, Jerry,
Jerry" as television screens showed him as the winner.

Brown visited briefly with some VIPs at the theater, then ducked
out a side door. He was expected to return later

A spokesman for Whitman, Tucker Bounds, had no immediate
comment.

Brown's victory over the former eBay chief executive brought the
office back under Democratic control. Republican Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's term will end in January after a little more than
seven years in office.

The son of a former two-term governor, Brown has spent a
lifetime in and out of politics that began when he was seated on
the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees in 1969.

Brown was California's 34th governor during his previous tenure
from 1975 to 1983, and now becomes its 39th.

He told voters they could count on his government "know-how"
to work with lawmakers in an attempt to fix the many problems
plaguing the nation's most populous state.

"I know where all the bodies are buried over there at the
Capitol, where all the skeletons are buried," he joked at a
campaign rally over the weekend. "In fact, I created some of
them."

As the campaign entered its final days, Brown promoted his deep
ties in California, with family roots stretching to the Gold Rush
era, presenting an image of a native son deeply connected to the
place he will oversee for a second time.

His win over Whitman in a governor's race that set a campaign
spending record came in a year when Republicans appeared to have
the edge and were expected to win a majority of governor's seats
across the country. Including contributions from others, Whitman's
total spending was expected to exceed $162 million.

Brown, who has run for president three times and lost a run for
U.S. Senate, returns to the governor's office as a more mature but
still unconventional politician, one who often speaks his mind and
rarely relies on a script or notes when he goes before a crowd.

The campaign turned increasingly negative in the final weeks,
when the airwaves were filled with attack ads.

Whitman's campaign was knocked off message when it was revealed
that she had employed an illegal immigrant housekeeper for nine
years, undermining her warnings that employers should be held
responsible and fined if they hire illegal workers.

Brown faced his own controversy after a Los Angeles police union
released an audio tape of a private conservation between Brown and
his campaign staffers. A female aide was overheard calling Whitman
a "whore" for currying favor with the union to win its
endorsement.

The controversies at times overshadowed debates on more
substantive issues such as job creation, the budget deficit,
college costs and public education.

Brown's prize for returning to the Capitol is trying to lead the
troubled state out of high unemployment, a stagnant economy and
political gridlock. He is expected to face a multibillion dollar
budget deficit and has said he will start meeting with lawmakers as
soon as December to find solutions.

Successive years of steep deficits have left the state's general
fund with $15 billion less than it had just three years ago,
leading to severe cuts in many state programs and higher costs for
college and university students.

Neither Brown nor Whitman offered specifics about how to solve
California's budget gridlock.

Brown campaigned on a moderate platform, saying he would not
raise taxes without voter approval and would try to control labor
and pension costs by bucking the powerful public employee unions
that spent $26 million to support his campaign.

When he is sworn in this January, Brown will be the second
oldest governor to hold the office, after Gov. Frank Merriam, who
turned 74 during his final weeks in office in 1939. Brown will be
76 at the end of his term in 2014.

Brown was eligible to run because his previous stint as governor
came before voters enacted term limits.

Only one other California governor has served three terms,
Republican Earl Warren, who became the 14th chief justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court. Warren resigned the governor's office with a
little more than a year left in his final term.

Brown's father, Gov. Pat Brown, lost his 1966 re-election
attempt for a third term to Ronald Reagan.