[3] As a member of the Warrior National Guard from 1886, Brandon eventually led the unit as a major of the U.S. Army in the Spanish–American War.

Judge Brandon was a candidate for governor twice, losing in 1918 to Thomas E. Kilby but defeating Bibb Graves (who later succeeded him) in 1922 with a platform calling for an economy in government and no new taxes.

Still, he continued Kilby's ambitious road construction and improvement program of Mobile's dock facilities, funding the latter with a $10 million bond issue.

The convention was marked by a deadlock between the supporters of the Irish Catholic New York Governor Al Smith and former Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo (the son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson) whose candidacy was backed by the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan.

For a time, his booming southern drawl heard on the radio, repeatedly declaring, "Alabama casts twenty-four votes for Oscar W. Underwood," became one of the most recognizable voices in the country.

After leaving the governorship in 1927, Brandon was appointed to his former office of Probate Judge of Tuscaloosa County by his onetime political opponent Governor Graves.