I rarely run old editorials because, among other reasons, they usually don’t age well and are frequently embarrassing.

Like this one.

Brown somehow overcame this less than ringing endorsement from The Times, which dismissed him as a bland, dithering political upstart from the Democratic Party.

Despite Republican Sen. William F. Knowland’s and Gov. Goodwin J. Knight’s smug assurance that they could "polish off Mr. Brown with the greatest of ease," Brown crushed Knowland in the November 1958 elections. With 4% of the precincts still uncounted, Brown was nearly 1 million votes ahead of Knowland, according to the Associated Press.

In fact, Democrats swept to power in 1958, controlling both houses of the state Legislature for the first time since 1889 and outnumbering Republicans by the largest margin since 1883.

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