Jerry Brown to Announce Run for California Governor

In this photo taken Dec. 24, 2009, Jerry Brown reflects on his tenure as Attorney General in his office in Oakland, Calif. (AP). (AP)

Jerry Brown is running for Governor of California....again.

Sources close to his campaign confirm that Brown will make his announcement via the Internet Tuesday at 2 p.m.

The 71-year-old career politician was previously governor from 1975 to 1983. Since then he's studied with Mother Teresa in India, has run for president three times, served as mayor of Oakland, and is now California's attorney general.

Brown has been a likely candidate for the past two years and had pledged "very soon" to formally kick off his gubernatorial campaign.

With word two weeks ago from popular Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein that she would not enter the governor's race, the path became clear for Brown to run.

Brown has already collected $12 million and has the support of some of Hollywood's biggest names.

Heavy hitters and veteran fund-raisers like Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen have already said they will back Brown.

A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute shows the former governor leading his most formidable GOP rival Meg Whitman by about five points, while an even more recent Rasmussen poll shows them tied with 43 percent of the vote each.

While Jerry Brown has spent his whole life in politics, Whitman is a political novice, albeit with a huge campaign war chest. As the former CEO of eBay, Whitman is said to have a personal fortune of $1.2 billion and records show she has already spent at least $19 million of it on the race.

Her commercials touting a "New California" run daily on local and cable television throughout the state.

The state Brown hopes to lead looks a lot different than it did when he left the governor's office 27 years ago. California is in the middle of an economic crises with the state legislature already having to make billions of dollars in cuts to social programs to shore up a $21 billion budget gap this year and an even bigger one the year before. The state's credit rating has been lowered and unemployment is above 12 percent.