Labor loves Brown for signing laws raising the minimum wage and requiring paid sick days, and for pushing big public works projects that create union jobs. Insurance companies love him for championing a new statewide health insurance exchange that brought an avalanche of new business. Hollywood loves him for signing a huge new film and TV tax-credit package.

"Donors tend to give contributions to politicians who are likely to support their agenda, rather than to convince those who oppose them to change sides," said Dan Schnur, who directs USC's Unruh Institute of Politics.

Donors also hope their money will buy them a politician's ear, if not necessarily his actions, Schnur said. "For a governor who's often unpredictable, that access is not a bad thing to have," he added.

To be sure, Brown doesn't please all his contributors all the time. His oft-cited "canoe" philosophy of governance -- paddling a little on the left and a little on the right to keep moving ahead -- means he's not easily pigeonholed into a partisan stereotype.

"He's a long thinker" looking decades ahead on water and transportation projects such as high-speed rail, said Art Pulaski, chief officer of the California Labor Federation AFL-CIO.

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