Garamendi Fills Key Campaign Job : Politics: Insurance commissioner names veteran political consultant Darry Sragow to manage his expected run for governor.

State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi took a major step toward becoming a formal candidate for governor Monday with the appointment of veteran political consultant Darry Sragow as campaign manager.

Sragow, 47, has served under Garamendi as deputy commissioner for consumer protection and communications since early this year. He resigned the state job Monday to go on Garamendi’s political payroll.

Officially, Garamendi said Sragow will run his exploratory campaign for governor. But Garamendi has indicated that he intends to run and Sragow is expected to be his key political strategist. The name of his committee, established in July, is “Garamendi for Governor.”

With Garamendi’s announcement, all three major prospective candidates have pre-campaign campaign organizations in place for the June, 1994, primary--and under the experts expected to be their campaign managers.

The Gov. Pete Wilson Campaign Committee is being directed by longtime Wilson associate and campaign manager George Gorton out of offices in Sacramento.

Democratic state Treasurer Kathleen Brown has Friends of Kathleen Brown under the day-to-day management of Teresa Vilmain, who is expected to become campaign manager when Brown makes her candidacy official. The committee has recently established an office in West Los Angeles.

Vilmain, a political veteran from Iowa, managed the unsuccessful 1992 U.S. Senate campaign of New Yorker Geraldine Ferraro, the former congresswoman and 1984 Democratic nominee for vice president. Until she joined Brown this year, Vilmain was political director of EMILY’s List, the organization that assists female candidates.

Previously, she worked for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington.

Sragow, a former congressional staff member, is a lawyer who has served with two politically prominent Los Angeles firms--Manatt, Phelps, Phillips & Kantor, and O’Melveny & Meyers.

He directed Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1988 and Dianne Feinstein’s primary campaign for governor in 1990, was 1988 California presidential campaign manager for Vice President Al Gore, and ran Washington state House Speaker Joe King’s successful primary campaign for governor of Washington in 1992.

In announcing the appointment, Garamendi called Sragow “one of California’s keenest political strategists” and said: “I am delighted that he has agreed to direct this effort.”

Sragow said the committee will open its office in Los Angeles soon. Garamendi appointed J. Kenneth Price, director of the Insurance Department’s auto insurance claims deposit program, to succeed Sragow in the deputy’s post.

Garamendi, 48, of Walnut Grove in Sacramento County, took office as California’s first elected insurance commissioner in 1991. He served one term in the state Assembly and 14 years in the state Senate. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1982 and controller in 1986.

Garamendi was chairman of President Clinton’s California campaign in 1992.

Wilson will be seeking reelection to a second term after his 1990 defeat of Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor who now holds Wilson’s former seat in the U.S. Senate.