Meet Neel Kashkari

George Will introduces you to California Governor Jerry Brown’s GOP opponent:

He relishes “turning upside down” the parties’ stereotypes. The Democratic candidate, 76-year-old Gov. Jerry Brown, is “the old white guy.” Kashkari, the 40-year-old son of Indian immigrants, was born in 1973, the year before Brown was first elected governor. Brown is a child of the establishment — his father Pat, California’s 32nd governor, was defeated in 1966 by Ronald Reagan. Jerry Brown, California’s 34th and 39th governor, is a government lifer, having been secretary of state, attorney general and Oakland’s mayor when not unsuccessfully seeking a U.S. Senate seat and the presidency (three times).

Kashkari prospered in the private sector, a place as foreign to Brown as Mongolia. Born in Ohio, Kashkari studied mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois, came to California to work in the aerospace industry, then earned an MBA from Wharton, joined Goldman Sachs and landed a Washington job with a Goldman Sachs alumnus, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. As a treasury official during one of the most dangerous periods in America’s economic history, from July 2006 to May 2009, Kashkari says: “I saw the best in our political system.”

Will sees Kashkari as a state-level Goldwater, who in a losing race could make the GOP a future winner, like Goldwater did in ’64. To my tastes Kashkari might not be the ideal candidate, given his enthusiastic support of TARP. But the GOP desperately needs rebranding and new faces, and Kashkari could help provide both.