STATE ELECTIONS : INSURANCE COMMISSIONER : GOP Candidate Retains the Image of Underdog

Wes Bannister admits his statewide campaign seemed improbable.

He had virtually no name recognition outside his city. He had a modest campaign war chest of about $80,000--not enough for any television ads. He had no statewide political experience, having never run for any office except the City Council.

Despite these drawbacks, Bannister topped a field of five candidates last week to win the Republican nomination for state insurance commissioner. The victory put him on a ticket this fall with some of the GOP’s biggest names in California, including gubernatorial candidate Sen. Pete Wilson and State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who is running for lieutenant governor.

“Now I’m getting ulcers,” Bannister joked in a post-election interview.

Bannister, 53, who owns an independent insurance agency, attributes his victory to a strong grass-roots effort and his knowledge of the insurance industry. He said he stumped around the state and talked to anyone who would listen.

“I couldn’t pay for TV ads, so I talked everywhere I could--all over the state,” he said. “I spoke to Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. I spoke to any club, to just about any group that would let me. I told the people I couldn’t afford the campaign mailers and television ads that other candidates were using. A lot of people volunteered to help me after they heard me speak.”

Bannister said he never had a gut feeling that he would win. But he added that he also was never discouraged by put-downs from political gurus who dismissed his chances.

“Some people said I could never win the nomination for insurance commissioner because I’m associated with the insurance business,” he said. “My response was to say: ‘Would you elect someone as attorney general who is not an attorney?’

“The point is that the insurance business is very complicated. The job of state insurance commissioner is going to be one of the most complicated jobs in Sacramento. But I understand insurance. I’ve been an insurance man the better part of my life.”

Bannister said that being in the insurance business does not mean he is captive to the insurance companies.

“My work is for the clients, the consumers--the people who buy insurance policies,” he said.

Bannister is married to the former Betty Rogers, and they have three children, Cathy, 29; Lisa, 27, and Doug, 23. He is a friendly, frequently smiling man with a strong, resonant voice.

But while affable, he can be as relentless as a prosecuting attorney in questioning city employees. During his one-year term as mayor last year, Bannister often questioned city expenditures or procedures. This often involved long questioning of city department heads. Some city employees privately complained that he was a headache to deal with.

But Bannister, who majored in political science at the University of Houston, said it is his nature to be thorough and analytical--a reader of the fine print in contracts and insurance policies. Being thorough, he said, can be a political asset.

“I went into insurance because I had to make a living,” he said. “Actually, I was selling insurance while still in college. I was working my way through college.”

He moved to Huntington Beach 21 years ago, and he became active in local politics. He first ran for elective office in 1980, losing a race for the Huntington Beach City Council by about 400 votes. In 1986, he ran again for City Council, and won on a pro-business, pro-downtown-redevelopment platform.

Among the pro-business councilmen elected with him in 1986 was Thomas J. Mays, the current mayor. Mays on Tuesday won the Republican nomination for the 58th Assembly District seat. Mays will face Democrat Luanne Pryor of Long Beach in the Nov. 6 election.

Bannister goes into his race as the underdog, facing State Sen. John Garamendi, a Northern Californian who has statewide name recognition because of an unsuccessful attempt for the Democratic nomination for governor. Garamendi is a veteran legislator and one of the state Senate’s most skilled debaters.

Said Bannister: “Garamendi is going to have a whole lot more campaign money than me. I raised about $80,000 in the primary, and I have about $20,000 of that remaining for the fall election. I didn’t have the money for big campaign mailers or television ads like Garamendi had.”

Some political observers thought Bannister would carry Orange County and trail elsewhere in the state in last week’s primary. But the reverse proved true. Bannister lost Orange County to John S. Parise, an attorney from Santa Ana, with Parise receiving 57,477 votes to Bannister’s 53,807 votes. Outside of Orange County, Bannister won handily, racking up a statewide total of 468,875 votes--53,000 votes more than Parise, his closest competitor in the five-way race.