Anne Gust Brown, petite and polished, speaks with the directness of someone who has little patience for theoretical colloquiums. She is the first person to whom advisers turn if they need to anticipate the long list of questions the governor is likely to pepper them with. After more than 20 years as his partner — and nearly a decade as his top aide — she is one of the few people who can predict his often unpredictable thinking. And she is the one most likely to tell the governor it is time to end the Socratic seminar and make a decision.
“I would say sometimes he’s exhausting,” Ms. Gust Brown said in a courtyard just outside the governor’s office. “Sometimes I have to foist him onto other people and say, you go talk to someone else about that, because he has a sort of insatiable appetite about these things.”