Jerry Brown, the Democratic candidate for California governor, gave the state's law enforcement community a behind-the-curtain glimpse into his views when an inadvertantly recorded private conversation included his aide calling Republican challenger Meg Whitman a "whore" for protecting police pensions.

The comment came during a call which Brown placed to the Los Angeles Police Protective League's Scott Rote asking for the union's endorsement, the Los Angeles Times reports.

During the call, Brown expresses frustration that Whitman "will cut them a deal, but I won't," referring to the law enforcement community. At that point, a campaign aide says, "What about saying she's a whore?"

Brown then responds by saying, "Well, I'm going to use that. It proves you've cut a secret deal to protect the pensions."

In mid-September, Whitman said she would exempt police, firefighters, and other state law enforcement officials from her pension reform plan.

In the recording Brown also asks Rote about the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association, which on Thursday announced its endorsement of Whitman. The CSLEA pointed to several considerations, including an interview with its board:

"Full funding of public safety is absolutely essential to everything else," Whitman told the [CSLEA] Board, emphasizing that nothing she could do on education, the economy, and the environment would succeed "if people do not feel safe in their homes and businesses." Privatizing state public safety jobs, she reassured the Board, is not at all a priority of hers.

In the endorsement, the group also cited Brown's opposition to the death penalty for those who kill law officers.

Read the full story at LATimes.com.