WALTER ZELMAN

In a recent essay on his failed candidacy for the office of insurance commissioner, Walter Zelman suggests that I unfairly characterized him as an “imposter” during his campaign (“Why One Mr. Smith Couldn’t Even Make It to Sacramento,” Nov. 11). Zelman’s public interest work as the director of Common Cause is well-known; it was not those credentials to which I was referring.

In 1988, Zelman strongly opposed and repeatedly criticized Proposition 103, the insurance-reform initiative that I supported and that created the elective office of insurance commissioner. During his subsequent candidacy for that office, Zelman proclaimed himself, in the insurance-reform context, to be the “Ralph Nader of California.” In publicly referring to himself in that fashion, he was improperly cloaking his positions, with which I did not agree, in my name. As I said at the time, candidate Zelman did himself and the public a disservice by abandoning his own history and trying to adopt mine.

RALPH NADER

Washington