In many ways, the campaign that Mr. Brown is running is politically conventional and arguably smart. Strong incumbents have little incentive to take risks or do anything that might draw attention to little-known challengers.
Mr. Brown certainly did not find any reason to take risks in a Field Poll released Thursday morning that showed him leading Mr. Kashkari with 50 percent of the vote to his opponent’s 34 percent — and that nearly 60 percent of voters did not know enough about Mr. Kashkari to voice an opinion of him.
But some analysts suggest that such a campaign does a disservice to voters and contributes to the increasing alienation many people feel to the political process; already, voter turnout in parts of California is notoriously low. Running on a platform of nothing in particular can put a candidate in a position of taking a second term with little authority to claim any kind of mandate or guidance from voters.
And there is reason to think a second Brown term would not be quite as easy as the first. Because of term limits, he would be a lame duck, and, as a rule, his authority would begin to diminish as a new generation of Democratic leaders who have been waiting for Mr. Brown — and for that matter, this state’s two elder Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein — to step aside begin circling.