Later, like all alliances of convenience, this one soured in an act of betrayal. Nolan went to the FBI and tried to spur an investigation into Brown. Ironically, the FBI probe he set into motion ended up sending Nolan to prison for 10 years.
"We were really good friends," Brown says of Nolan. "I went to his wedding. I was there when one of his kids was born. I never knew he was such a rotten son of a bitch."
"[Brown] was extremely comfortable dealing with real hard-right Republicans," Walters says. "He could turn them against each other. By bolstering the far right he would disempower the moderate Republicans and prevent them from making a deal with moderate Democrats that would undercut him."
William Bagley takes a more positive spin on Brown's ability to coalesce power. "He would know everyone's proclivities," he says. "He'd know when to cooperate with someone, when to put someone on a committee, when to give them a vote, he knew the characters of all his members inside out, what they needed. That's how he created his ongoing speakership."
Bagley says Brown sometimes controlled people by sheer force of will. Bagley remembers a regents meeting -- Brown is an ex officio regent -- when hundreds of angry students were protesting UC President David Gardner's lucrative pension, which had been granted at the same time the regents raised student fees.
"There were two, three hundred of them screaming," Bagley recalls. "Willie didn't even have to get up. He just leaned into the microphone and in that voice he said, 'I fought a long, hard time to have the voice I have, and you are going to listen to it.' " Bagley says the room went dead in a matter of seconds.
"Now if he can do that with a group of protesting students, imagine what he can do in San Francisco," Bagley adds.
Like Bagley, UC Berkeley political science professor Bruce Cain doesn't doubt Brown's ability to fathom and control the crazy factions of San Francisco politics.
Cain, who worked as a reapportionment adviser to Brown, thinks the style Brown developed in Sacramento will fit here quite nicely.
"The key to San Francisco is your ability to do good politics," Cain says. "You have to build a coalition and keep tending it after you get elected. That's all Willie did in Sacramento. He did politics day in, day out. It doesn't matter if you are dealing with the nurses union of the Richmond District Democratic Club. It's all about dealing with demands."
Cain does have one concern about a Brown mayoralty, however. "I think maybe halfway through his term he'll say, 'Why did I do this?' " he says. "He wants the job because he loves the city and he's looking for the next stage in his life. His personality abhors a vacuum. But based on what I know about him it's quite possible that he isn't going to enjoy this job as much as being speaker. I think he's already had the best job of his life.
