California Republicans Invoke a Familiar Face: Jane Fonda

The California Republican Party is linking Jerry Brown to Jane Fonda, digging up 30-plus year-old flap over Brown’s appointment of Fonda to the California Arts Council.

The party sent out an e-mail today linking to an archive post of the story, in which Brown said back then, “It’s better to bring controversy into the arena of decision making than to keep it underground.”

At the time, Fonda was a much more polarizing figure because of her opposition to the war in Vietnam and visit to Hanoi. Her appointment to the panel was rejected by the state Senate.

She has since said that she regretted photos in which she is sitting on an anti-aircraft gun, and apologized to veterans.

But she routinely emerges as a Republican target, most recently in 2004, when a fake photograph was circulated that made it look like she was sitting next to John Kerry at a 1970 anti-war rally.

That the state Republican party has targeted her in the campaign probably is an appeal to older, conservative voters who still detest her for her politics.

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Fonda opposed the war in Iraq, and even attended an anti-war rally in Washington in 2007, but she has often stayed out of the partisan fray.

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Martina Birk

Update: 2024-05-31

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