Jerry Brown, the contender for Governor, issues the dare at the California Democratic convention as the party seems to respond to the nationwide GOP wave.

On Saturday, taking the odious for the first time in his campaign for Governor, Jerry Brown attempted to oppose Republican impetus by issuing a challenge from the state Democratic convention stage for his GOP rivals to discuss with him before the primary election in June.

Brown's announcement, in front of thousands of keyed up Democrats at the Los Angeles Convention Center, was intended to unite the party against a nationwide tide favoring Republicans, which poses a threat to his odds for a second term as Governor, and has also put Sen. Barbara Boxer in a re-election war.

He continually attacked at Republican, Meg Whitman, the billionaire ex-Head of EBay who has invested $59 million of her own cash into her gubernatorial campaign.

Greatly overstating her spending, Brown told the delegates, "Campaigning and democracy is not about buying hundreds of millions of dollars of 30-second TV ads”.

He said that when they subsist in a democracy, they are not buyers of advertising. They are mediators of democratic choice; they are performers in a historical play.

Responding to ads aired by Whitman and her colleague Republican Steve Poizner, who follows her in polls for the June 8 primary, Brown said, "Come out from behind those glittering poppy fields, those beautiful car crashes over the mountain. Let's set up some honest debates".

Poizner's campaign at once acknowledged Brown's three-debate challenge; Whitman's campaign originally said that she welcomed the idea but later refused.