Garamendi Opens Race for Governor, Vows Renewal : Democrats: Insurance commissioner stresses hard work, risk-taking in what experts see as an uphill bid.

Surrounded by scores of friends and family in his Mother Lode hometown, Democrat John Garamendi launched his campaign for governor Saturday with a pledge to revive California’s spirit, bring back its economic luster and make the state work again.

Garamendi, 49, a fourth-generation descendant of Gold Rush-era miners and ranchers, offered a new style Democratic agenda that is tough on criminals and puts welfare recipients to work, but he also emphasized his qualities of leadership based on listening to people rather than preaching at them.

“We need a governor who will lift a shovel or a hammer to get things fixed and doesn’t mind the dirt under his fingernails,” said Garamendi, a 19-year veteran of state government, first as a legislator and now as California’s first elected insurance commissioner.

During a 30-minute speech from a stage erected on Main Street, the 6-foot-2 former UC football star said: “We need a governor with the experience and good sense to figure out what’s not working and the courage to change government so that it will work.”

Garamendi began what many political experts view to be an uphill campaign to win the Democratic nomination for governor over state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, 48, in the June 7 primary. The winner will battle Republican Gov. Pete Wilson for the right to serve a four-year term beginning in January, 1995.

In the most recent Field Poll, Brown led Garamendi 45% to 30% among Democrats. But the poll also indicated that both Democrats were running ahead of Wilson, who has suffered the worst public approval ratings of any modern California governor during the last two recession-plagued years. Wilson’s stock in the polls has revived in recent months, and political experts expect a tough, close campaign.

As an underdog challenger, Garamendi said he is willing to take risks and do the unusual to win the election. He said he is prepared to do whatever is needed to revitalize a California that has been battered by economic reversals, natural disasters, declining public services and a sense that things do not work very well anymore.

Hard work is the keynote of his campaign and his promises. Garamendi is working side by side with people in various occupations as he campaigns throughout the state.

On Saturday, Garamendi, the sleeves of his white oxford shirt rolled up to the elbows, declared:

“I am not just running for governor. I am working for governor. And I will make the government work as hard as Californians work when I become governor.”

Garamendi delivered his address to about 1,000 people in this small town 50 miles southeast of Sacramento.

The setting was full of symbolism as Garamendi--wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a big brass belt buckle embossed with the seal of the state of California--gestured to the red schoolhouse he attended and the Town Hall where he won his badges as an Eagle Scout.

He talked of a “sense of community” and the residents who are working to create a park and finding a way to pay for it.

On a far broader scale, he said, California can solve its massive problems only by devising such teamwork-oriented solutions.

“I am convinced we can renew the California community and our spirit,” he said. “The responsibility begins at the very top, with the governor. It is here, within us. We just need to bring it out.”

Garamendi sought to make the connection between disparate parts of the state by noting that lumber harvested from the nearby Sierra slopes must get to market in Los Angeles via Interstate 5, sections of which was shut down by the Jan. 17 earthquake.

“If you can’t get (the lumber) there, we don’t have a job,” he said.

In broad strokes, his program included:

* Revitalization of the economy by encouraging those industries that are doing well and adapting to changing conditions, and by helping the emerging businesses of the high-tech era, in biomedicine, communications and the like.

* Investment to rebuild California’s public education system so that, he said, it again is the best in the world. As governor, Garamendi would work at least five days a year as a teacher in a public classroom, he said.

* A crackdown on crime that would include tough enforcement of California’s death penalty, and passage of legislation that would put career violent criminals in prison for life and first-time offenders in no-nonsense boot camps. He also advocated higher spending on drug prevention and treatment programs.

* Reconstruction of California’s public works as a foundation to economic growth, particularly in the wake of the Northridge earthquake, a disaster that he said will require increases in state gasoline and sales taxes.

* A re-evaluation of how government works to make it smarter and to take advantage of new technology and communications, computers and databases. “If American Express and Visa can do it, our government can do it,” he said.

Saturday marked the start of John Raymond Garamendi’s second run for the governorship and fourth run for statewide office. The first, in 1982, was ill-timed and premature, most experts agree, and he was trounced in the Democratic primary by then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Garamendi weighed running again in 1986 but decided to try for state controller instead. He lost that primary too. In 1990 he won election to statewide office for the first time by running for the new office of insurance commissioner.

He has been viewed by California political insiders as a somewhat quixotic, go-it-alone politician, with a large dose of ambition and self-esteem. But they also acknowledge that he is one of the brightest people in California politics and that after four years in the state Assembly and 14 years in the state Senate, Garamendi has few peers in his grasp of the intricacies of California government.

Garamendi also has been a pioneer in the effort to reform health care. A plan he developed for California, which has never been approved, became the basis for President Clinton’s reform proposals.

During his three years as insurance commissioner, Garamendi has sought to force companies to cough up rebates promised in the same 1988 ballot proposition that created the elected commissionership, to curb rate increases and to rehabilitate failed insurance companies. The results have been mixed, but Garamendi generally has received high marks for energy and effort.

Garamendi acknowledges the maverick label.

“I am not one to sit and let the world go by,” he said recently. “I take an active role in what I do and sometimes that rubs people the wrong way.”

Few gave Garamendi much chance of denying Brown the Democratic nomination for governor when he first talked about running again. But he has doggedly pursued the effort even in the face of Brown’s huge fund-raising advantage, and polling continues to show that he is better known among likely voters than is Brown.

Brown has been viewed by many Democrats as the natural successor to the governorship in the footsteps of her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr. 1959-67, and her brother, Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. 1975-83.

Brown does not have Garamendi’s or Wilson’s experience in the nuts and bolts of government but has the television star quality that has been touted as a key to winning the top office in a state with a population of 32 million.

The requirement for an effective television campaign in California is money--millions of dollars of it. When campaign finance reports are filed Monday, Brown is expected to show about $5 million in the bank compared to Garamendi’s $1 million.

But Garamendi’s willingness to take risks--by calling for tax increases to fix earthquake damage, for example, while Brown said it was premature--and his energy and knowledge of government, have given his campaign legitimacy, political experts said last week.

Garamendi aides believe he can score a breakthrough in face-to-face debates with Brown. Garamendi has challenged her to a series of 10. Brown says she will debate, but there has been no agreement yet on how many or what format they will take.

Field Poll official Mark DiCamillo said Garamendi must find a way to appeal to Democratic women, who favored Brown by 21 percentage points in the latest survey. But experts said Garamendi is strong on issues seen as important to women, including crime, the economy and health care.

Brown, however, is considered by the California political Establishment as a likable candidate, an assessment not shared by Garamendi.

But in a forum of political consultants last week, Wilson campaign manager George Gorton said: “This is not a year to be likable. This is a tough year. The mood is tough, tough.”

The traditional California announcement for governor is a daylong or two-day tour of major California media markets, the sort of script Brown is expected to follow when she announces her candidacy in mid-February.

Garamendi’s announcement Saturday was symbolic of an unconventional campaign in an election year in which Garamendi strategists believe voters will not be satisfied with conventional politics.

For two weeks, Brown aides had mocked the idea of announcing in a town--as Garamendi emcee Ophelia McFadden put it Saturday “that few have heard about and most of us cannot pronounce.” McFadden then called the town of 1,274 residents what most locals do, “Moke Hill.”

By coming back to Mokelumne Hill--the family ranch in Chile Gulch is a few miles away--Garamendi also was able to talk about his deep roots in California history, matching those of Brown, whose family also goes back generations.

Those in the crowd behind him included his wife, Patti, associate director of the Peace Corps, his mother, Mary Jane, his six children and many other offspring of the family of Basque and Italian pioneers.

Profile: John Garamendi

John Garamendi formally announced his candidacy for governor of California on Saturday. He will compete with state Treasurer Kathleen Brown for the Democratic nomination in the June 7 primary. The winner will run in the fall campaign against Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who is seeking a second term.

* Born: Jan. 24, 1945, Camp Blanding, Fla.

* Residence: Walnut Grove, Sacramento County.

* Education: BS, major in economics, University of California, Berkeley, 1965. MBA, Harvard University, 1970.

* Career highlights: Peace Corps, Ethiopia, 1966-68; ranching and finance, 1970-74; state Assembly member, 1975-77; state senator, 1977-1991; state insurance commissioner, 1991-present.

* Personal: Married, Dec. 18, 1965, to Patricia Wilkinson Garamendi, associate director of the Peace Corps. One son, John Jr., and five daughters, Genet, Christina, Autumn, Merle and Ashley.

* Quote: “(This is) the beginning of a journey . . . to rebuild California’s economy and California’s spirit, to restore the brilliant golden luster to this land of unique opportunity.”