A Candidate (Maybe) Who Won’t Go Away

On the Monday after a major defeat in the battle for auto insurance reform, John Garamendi found himself before a less than sympathetic audience of industry executives and analysts. As the state’s first elected insurance commissioner--and as a Democrat with ambitions--Garamendi has a keen interest in reforming an industry he likens to “pigs in the trough.”

By contrast, this crowd gathered in the La Costa Resort dining room seemed quite content with the status quo. In fact, there was applause and even laughter when, at the outset, Garamendi acknowledged that he’d lost “a big one” the week before. A judge had supported an insurance company challenge of Proposition 103, the initiative intended to roll back auto insurance rates. Garamendi smiled ruefully and waited for the guffaws to end. Then he went on, saying his response to the setback could be “summed up” by something Winston Churchill had said at a commencement exercise shortly after World War II.

The graduates, Garamendi said, “were anticipating a profound discussion on the strategies of war. Winston Churchill came to the podium, looked down on his audience and said: ‘Never give up. Never, never give up. Never, never, never give up.’ He then left the podium and went his way.”

Here Garamendi parted company with the wisdom of Sir Winnie: He stayed at the podium for almost an hour.

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Ask John Garamendi about insurance and it’s best to find a soft chair. He will speak with passion and at great length about Municipal GICs and PPOs and many other arcane matters before him. And just when he seems ready to drown in wonkishness, Garamendi will turn on the spicy populist rhetoric about sticking up for “the people,” about fighting “the pigs in the trough,” a favorite phrase.

Ask about his immediate political plans and Garamendi grows more reticent. He and state Treasurer Kathleen Brown both seem eager to take a run at Pete Wilson, who Garamendi calls, bluntly enough, “a disaster.” At this stage of the campaign, however, neither is about to come clean about their intentions. It’s too early. Too much can happen.

“The real question is how far do I want to go with this discussion,” Garamendi responded Monday after the speech when, alone in his car, he was asked the G-question. “It’s under consideration, OK? . . . When the time comes to announce a decision we will certainly undertake a campaign which will be, I think, the best one ever run in the state of California. If we decide to do it.”

And so on. He certainly behaved like a candidate Monday. In addition to the speech, he met with a newspaper editorial board in San Diego, was interviewed by a television crew, gave his speech at La Costa and toured a new hospital emergency room. Everywhere he went--and in his car between stops--Garamendi spoke of wanting to “change systems.” Health care systems. Insurance systems. Education systems. Transportation systems. Government systems. A Harvard MBA, Garamendi possesses a Clintonesque fascination with government details. A football guard at Cal, he also possesses a certain bullheadedness.

Which leads to an interesting aspect of this embryonic race for governor. . . .

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From Democratic insiders come whispered complaints about Garamendi. It’s all careful and coy, but they create the impression they kind of wish he would just go away and create a clear path for Brown. They believe she has the best shot of beating Wilson--and might be in even stronger position without spending millions on a primary campaign. They talk of Garamendi’s “sharp elbows” and his “ambition,” faxing along as Exhibit A the heavy-handed Christmas card he sent last year: Pictured with the eight smiling Garamendis was one outsider. Bill Clinton.

Garamendi, at this point, isn’t taking any hints. He appears ready, offensive guard that he was, to lower his head and bull ahead, conceding nothing to conventional wisdom, whisper campaigns or any other candidate. “It’s incredibly early,” he said of the race. And as for Democratic insiders, he finds their discomfort not “particularly relevant--certainly not to any decision that I would make.”

He has some ideas for California, some things he wants to say. The final irony is that a vigorous primary might actually be a good thing for Kathleen Brown, sharpening her focus, spreading her message. Again, not that this matters to John Garamendi, who puts it this way: “I’ve earned my shot.”

Let’s close with another historic quote: “It is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end.” That one also comes from Winston Churchill, who seemed to know an awful lot about California politics.