Candidate Now Has Audience

When Cary Savitch ran for Congress last year, much of the political establishment wrote him off.

How seriously were people supposed to take a candidate whose campaign platform was rebuilding the nation’s supply of smallpox vaccine and protecting citizens from anthrax?

Now, the Ventura physician is launching another bid for office, challenging incumbent Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara).

The 53-year-old Reform Party candidate acknowledges he is as much a longshot as before. But in the post-Sept. 11 climate, with anthrax-tainted mail and heightened public fear, he’s hopeful people will be more receptive to his message.

“I don’t want to be an I-told-you-so,” said Savitch, a husband and father of three. “I’m telling people this was my issue then and this is my issue now. You’ve got to go ahead from here: ‘What is the game plan today?’ Not, ‘Where did we fail yesterday?’ ”

Although he entered politics because of bioterrorism concerns, Savitch made his mark as an author and activist with his position on AIDS policy.

Civil libertarians, gay rights advocates and some health care providers often bristle at Savitch’s views on how government should control the spread of AIDS. Some have accused him of being extremist, homophobic and unrealistic.

Savitch, who specializes in infectious diseases, contends that public health departments have fallen down on the job, that they are driven more by politics than by conscience. He wants the state to allow doctors to report all HIV-positive patients to local health departments by name, rather than by numerical code. That would better allow health officials to track HIV-positive patients and notify sexual partners who could be at risk.

He contends that most doctors agree with his position but don’t speak out because they fear condemnation by activists.

As he was making a name for himself in the AIDS debate, Savitch was also learning about what many health officials already saw as a rising threat on U.S. soil: bioterrorism.

There was the Japanese cult that released sarin gas in a Tokyo subway in 1995, killing a dozen people. There was the breakup of the Soviet Union, which led to the black market sale of nuclear and biological weaponry.

A member of the Infectious Disease Assn. of California, Savitch said he attended several meetings in 1997 and 1998 during which national experts spoke about how doctors and public health systems should prepare for such threats.

But Savitch didn’t think politicians were taking the threat seriously. The release of smallpox in the U.S., where inoculation ended three decades ago and vaccine is in short supply, could turn society upside-down, he said.

“Despite AIDS being my main issue, how could I be aware of this looming threat of smallpox and not say anything about it?” Savitch said. “If nothing else, I wanted to get the word out about this.”

Message Failed to Resonate With Public

He decided in 1999 to run for Congress, pitting himself--an unknown with no fund-raising machine--against longtime Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Democrat Michael Case, a Ventura attorney.

“I’d get up before my rounds and go to supermarkets and hand out fliers and ask people: ‘Are you concerned about smallpox?’ ” Savitch said.

“I was going to Target to spread the word about bioterrorism. And people would look at me like, ‘Are you crazy?’ They were like, ‘What is this guy talking about?’ ”

The media didn’t take him seriously either, he said. “It was like, ‘Why are you talking about this? Nobody wants to hear about this,’ ” he said. “But that didn’t matter. I was dealing with the right issues. I mean, school vouchers? That pales in comparison to life itself.”

His message didn’t resonate with voters. Savitch garnered 3% of the vote.

Nancy Snow, a political science professor who consults for UCLA and teaches at USC, said that’s not surprising.

“Prior to Sept. 11, you would have been considered a kook for running on that,” she said. “I’m sorry to say that, but it’s true. We all had other things we worried about. It’s like, ‘Great, add another layer. Now I’ve got to worry about smallpox.’ ”

Snow said even the incumbents who were concerned about bioterrorism knew it wouldn’t sell to the electorate as much as mainstream and local issues.

“There were committees in Congress looking at it, but I cannot think of any candidate who was making his mark on this issue,” Snow said. “The focus was on the economy.”

Case, the Democrat who also lost to Gallegly last year, gives Savitch credit for being “right on target” with his concerns about smallpox and anthrax, but said Savitch’s intensity--often manifested in diatribes that invoked doomsday scenarios--scared voters away.

“People thought he was too much like Chicken Little and saying, ‘The sky is falling,’ ” Case said. “People predict things all the time, and they’re usually wrong.”

Gallegly said he has spoken several times with Savitch since the Sept. 11 attacks and has found his insights on smallpox useful.

At the same time, he doesn’t believe there’s a deficit of knowledge or concern among elected officials today.

Meanwhile, pollster Neil Newhouse, who has been tracking public sentiment on terrorism at the national level, said Savitch is unlikely to find a groundswell of support in November 2002 just because he was talking about smallpox and anthrax in 2000.

“You’re not going to find many guys running for Congress, much less state or local level [races], on an anti-terrorist issue,” he said.

“Because nobody’s going to be in favor of terrorism, it’s going to be hard to say, ‘The other guy’s soft on terrorism’ or ‘soft on homeland defense,’ ” Newhouse continued. “It’s more likely going to be the economy and jobs and education and health care and the environment.”

That’s not to say voters aren’t concerned about domestic terrorism; polls show that women are especially concerned.

“People are going to be more open to electing doctors, just like they may be more open to electing people with a military background,” Newhouse said. “But you’ve got to have more issues than infectious diseases or health care. People usually don’t elect one-dimensional candidates.”

Savitch rejects that advice.

“I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert on all issues,” he said. “But I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out an issue and pull the lever. We need more specialists [in elected office]. I’m not going to dilute my energy or try to put together a platform that gets me more votes.”

In addition to bioterrorism and AIDS, Savitch’s limited platform includes nuclear disarmament--more a federal issue than a state issue--and a controversial anti-lawyer package that would give doctors, pharmaceutical companies and airlines immunity from lawsuits in many cases, including those involving responses to bioterrorism.

Jackson, the incumbent Savitch is challenging next year, is an attorney. She opposes mandatory reporting of HIV-positive patients to health departments by name, believing it could scare people away from testing and treatment.

She declined to be interviewed, but her staff said she recently held a hearing on biological and chemical terrorism and expects to be involved in drafting terrorism preparedness legislation next year.

Savitch sees Jackson--and her position on AIDS reporting--as part of the problem with public health in California.

He says all citizens should be tested for HIV and that prenatal and premarital screening should be mandatory.

In 1997, he published a memoir, “The Nutcracker Is Already Dancing,” about his experiences treating AIDS patients since the early 1980s. He wrote opinion pieces that have run in newspapers across the country. He has appeared on the late-night TV program “Politically Incorrect” and co-founded the advocacy group “Beyond AIDS.”

State Health Dept. Called a ‘Disgrace’

“I truly believe that I am the best friend of public health,” Savitch said. “If I sound critical, it’s not that I don’t support them, it’s that they don’t do what they need to do.”

He also draws parallels between government’s response to AIDS and its ability to respond to a bioterrorism attack.

“Our health department in California is a disgrace,” he said. “They have not showed up for the epidemic we have. Now we have to count on them for the theoretical epidemic?”

Dr. Robert Levin, Ventura County’s public health officer, said he agrees that politics has impeded AIDS management statewide. “Local public health officers have said for years that there should be name reporting of HIV cases,” he said. “We can’t get it passed [in the Legislature].”

Scientist Says Focus on Bioterrorism Needed

But those concerns don’t carry over into terrorism, Levin said.

“Public health funding in this state has been neglected for years,” he said. “In spite of that, we’ve been working on a terrorism task force for three years now. That’s brought together law enforcement, public health and emergency management officials. We’ve developed solid relationships and training. We’re as prepared as we can be and constantly struggling to be more and more prepared.”

Raymond Zilinskas, a senior scientist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is less optimistic about California’s ability to respond to a bioterrorism attack. If Savitch can focus on specific areas that need better funding or direction, he could be valuable in office or in an advisory capacity, Zilinskas said.

But Zilinskas cautioned Savitch against drawing connections between AIDS and bioterrorism. “They’re completely different,” he said.

“One involves some severe social issues that are really long-standing. The other is really a hypothetical threat whose magnitude we don’t know.”