SEE HOW HE RUNS
Your puff piece on John Garamendi (“The Loner,” by Bill Stall, April 24) missed two minuses (and, to be fair, one plus).
Two of Garamendi’s principal achievements were to increase the state Department of Insurance budget and to drive a number of insurance companies out of California.
On the plus side, Garamendi has come out in favor of the no-fault concept, which, because of pervasive fraud, is the only system that will ever bring auto insurance rates down.
WILLIAM H. SUTER
South Pasadena
A photograph accompanying the Garamendi article showed the commissioner picking artichokes. How many did he actually pick--ouch!--without gloves? Judging from the expression on his face, at the time the picture was taken, he may have already picked one or two--ouch! Those prickly thistles can draw blood.
The photographer is to be commended for an excellent example of truth in advertising.
MARCELLA MEHARG
Los Angeles
The most distinctive aspect of this Berkeley-educated bureaucrat’s career stems from a job title that could have come out of the pages of “Atlas Shrugged”: state insurance commissioner. Emboldened by the socialist bromides of John F. Ken- nedy’s New Frontier, Garamendi and his bunch have launched an assault on every individual right from a medical livelihood to ownership of property.
Like his comrade, Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton, Garamendi is the personification of the follower. He has accepted every statist notion he’s been offered. His ideas are not new; his principles are the dying gasps of socialism.
SCOTT HOLLERAN
Glendale
I’m not certain that Garamendi represents the best interests of the citizens of California. Nor am I convinced that he would be an honest governor or an effective one. But he does, however, represent a new type of politician: one who uses the public interest for his own purposes under the guise of serving it.
MARC H. WEISS
Woodland Hills
Garamendi does have a “beautiful family,” but on a planet that’s reeling from the effects of overpopulation, isn’t it incumbent on our public officials to set a better example --two children, for example, instead of six? That supposedly well-educated couples consider it perfectly OK to have six children astounds me.
BETTY JEAN BRITE
Santa Monica
In my opinion, and with all due respect, I think John Garamendi is pure hokum.
GREGG P. DURHAM
Cypress
With a substantial number of drivers in California currently operating vehicles without automobile insurance, perhaps the commissioner should sideline his political ambitions until the uninsured motorists problem is solved.
DAN FOSTER
Venice