Former Gov. Jerry Brown – defying both a crushing conservative wave sweeping the nation and a tsunami of spending by his billionaire opponent – handily beat eBay CEO Meg Whitman Tuesday, a historic win that returns the 72-year-old Democrat to the post he held nearly three decades ago as California’s chief executive.

“It looks like I’m going back again,” said the state attorney general speaking to a crowd of thousands of excited Democrats at the historic Fox Theater in Oakland – the city he led as mayor for two terms and where he still resides. “They haven’t got all the votes in, but hell – it’s good enough for government work,” he joked to laughs, shortly after 11 p.m.

Brown called for an end to the “polarization, hostility, division,” that has defined state politics in recent years. “I still carry with me that missionary zeal to kind of transform the world,” the former Jesuit seminarian said, adding that “I’m hoping and I’m praying that this breakdown – that’s gone on for so many years – paves the way for a breakthrough.”

“I take as my challenge a forging of a common purpose … based on a vision of what California can be,” said Brown, the son of the late Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. He said he will now go back to the post he held “28 eight years later, full of energy, full of creativity – and ready to serve you, the people of California.”

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