California Attorney General Jerry Brown has raised more than three times the money either of his not-yet-declared opponents for the 2010 California gubernatorial primary, and also had more than four times the amount of cash-on-hand at the end of 2008.

Attorney General Jerry Brown announced Friday that he raised $3.4 million in 2008 in advance of an expected bid for governor in 2010. That sum leaves Brown, a Democrat, perched above his two declared Democratic rivals, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who each reported raising on the order of $1.1 million last year.

Brown’s haul, combined with leftover cash from his 2006 election, leaves him with $4.1 million cash-on-hand, a total that dwarfs the roughly $750,000 available to Garamendi and the $540,000 available to Newsom at year’s end. 

Gavin wants California Democrats to know that he’s only been raising money for half the time either Brown or Garamendi has, although I don’t quite see how that excuses his three-fold shortfall:

Newsom’s campaign, which released its report earlier this month, touts that the mayor raised $1.179 million in only six months — half the time Garamendi and Brown spent coaxing contributors.

Brown’s previously-mocked pecunious ways while Governor (drove his own beat-up Plymouth Satellite, never moved into the gubernatorial mausoleum Nancy Reagan had built while the state’s First Lady, slept on a tatami mat) seem to be serving him rather well in the ramp-up to another run for the governorship:

Brown’s campaign touts its low "burn rate" – the ratio of spending the money it raised.  The Brown operation has been largely a two-person show, the attorney general and his wife, Anne Gust. As such, Brown spent only a $172,000 in 2008, less than one-third of what Newsom or Garamendi spent.

Not (yet) actively raising money for a race to head our bankrupt-next-week state? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Superintendent of Public Schools Jack McConnell — and Senator Dianne Feinstein.