Running the Risk of a Run as a ‘Businessman’

For decades, the word “businessman” has cast a glow of plucky American virtues upon those who wear it and hear it. “Businessman” was the first skill Bill Simon offered to the voters of California in choosing to run for governor. And President Calvin Coolidge declared: “The business of America is business” (four years before the stock market crashed in 1929).

An Orange County congressional candidate once polled voters about which of several ballot designations--the short description summing up a candidate--would be regarded most favorably. The winner: independent businessman.

But Enron and its sinning brethren may have changed that, at least for the nonce.

In California, one major candidate decided at the last minute that “businessman” could be a golden albatross, and had it removed from his ballot designations.

Foremost is Democrat John Garamendi, the state’s first elected insurance commissioner, running for that job again.

He changed his ballot listing from “businessman/rancher,” which got him through the primary, to plain old “rancher.”

In a San Jose-area Senate district, Republican Jeff Denham hedged his bets by changing “businessman” to “small business owner,” as did East Bay Republican Assembly candidate Guy Houston.

But some candidates are bucking that trend.

Chula Vista’s Shirley Horton, a Republican Assembly candidate, added “businesswoman” to her title of “mayor.”

Longtime legislator Bill Leonard, a San Bernardino Republican running for the state board of equalization, added “businessman” to his designation, and Republican Assembly candidate Brian McCabe, evidently boldly choosing between evils, dropped “attorney” in favor of “businessman.”

In case this gives anyone else ideas--too late.

The deadline for changes was last week.

So Gray Davis is still listed as “Governor of the State of California,” and Bill Simon is still “businessman/charity director.”

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All the Time Needed, if It’s Not Too Long

The recent 3:30-to-9 p.m. press peepshow of Bill Simon’s encyclopedically huge tax returns is still stirring the political pot.

The Simon campaign is sending out mixed messages about whether anyone will be able to look at the documents again. Chief strategist Sal Russo told Timesman George Skelton that the returns will be available throughout the campaign, and he gave the impression that reporters were given all the time they needed.

Sounds swell--except a Times reporter was shown the door promptly at 9 p.m. rather than getting “all the time” he needed. And “available” turned out to mean, well, you can’t look at them again, but if you have specific questions based on what you already saw, we’ll answer those questions for you. A Times political reporter duly submitted his list, and nearly two weeks later, still has no answers.

Startlingly--but maybe indicative of a campaign with scores of staff members, some of them invariably stepping over one another--press secretary Mark Miner acknowledged that the notions of reporters having all the time they needed and returns being made available throughout the campaign were flat wrong.

Nonetheless, the campaign e-mailed that untrue passage from The Times far and wide to supporters to lend credence to what one of its own had already acknowledged was untrue. The e-mailing was “a mistake,” Miner said; the returns will not be making a return appearance. But the e-mail was not retracted.

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Rookie Richman Goes Hat in Hand

Assemblyman Keith Richman, recently lauded by the California Journal as rookie of the year in Sacramento, showed a bit more of the rookie aspect last week: The Northridge Republican is running for mayor of the proposed San Fernando Valley city even before there is a San Fernando Valley city.

In a letter asking for donations to his campaign, he promised “freedom from a downtown government that takes taxes from the Valley and refuses to return a fair share of services.”

On the receiving end of one of those letters was L.A. City Council President Alex Padilla, a honcho among anti-secessionists, who did not take the characterization well: “I think,” he said, “Keith Richman should worry about passing the state budget before he asks me for money.”

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Politicians Take to the Runway

Ohio Democratic representative and convicted felon James Traficant’s threat to wear a denim suit on the floor of the Congress was the least of his offenses, but it is nonetheless surprising how few politicians have--or seem to want--any sartorial flair.

Hence the astonished applause as Los Angeles politicos and poweristas strolled and sashayed down the runway clad in designer chic as a fund-raiser for the beautification programs of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

Newly svelte L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, City Controller Laura Chick, City Council member Cindy Miscikowski, school board member Caprice Young, Police Protective League President Mitzi Grasso, and subdistrict school superintendent Robert Collins all looked quite smart, while the changing rooms at Bloomingdale’s in Sherman Oaks looked like backstage in Milan, with Donna Karan, Kenneth Cole and Hugo Boss separates being flung about.

The biggest crowd-pleaser was Delgadillo, playing the “Latino Elvis Esquire” look to the hilt as women in the crowd squealed and waved dollar bills. And each of the seven took a turn looking dignified but delectable--electable is another standard--in outfits of daywear, playwear and evening wear, or in political parlance, dressing for quorum, forum and fund-raising decorum.

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Points Taken

* The new president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.--the prison guards group that got juicy pay raises from Gray Davis and then gave about a quarter-million dollars to his campaign--swore in its new president, Mike Jimenez. He replaces Don Novey now, even though--hello, democracy--the election for president isn’t until September. Jimenez was running unopposed, so why wait? He was sworn in last week on the floor of the state Senate.

* Some political help for furry friends this month from Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe. Stealing thunder from his pet-loving colleague Mike Antonovich, Knabe proposed that homes and apartments with cats or dogs or both put stickers saying so on their windows, so that if fire breaks out, firefighters can try to rescue the pets as well as the people. The city of Hermosa Beach has recently begun a similar program. And in Hawaii, Chris Quackenbush, the wife of disgraced ex-California insurance commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, is lobbying to cut the waiting time for quarantining pets coming to the islands.

* The announcement of last weekend’s neighborhood political convention for Los Angeles’ “Congress of Neighborhoods” pointed out v-e-r-y clearly that the event would be held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel: “Yes, it’s in the city of Los Angeles.”

* Rep. Adam Schiff, a Pasadena Democrat, and his wife, Eve, are parents again, but there the resemblance ends: Shying away from the obvious and tragic allusions to Cain, Abel and Seth, the couple named their new son Elijah Harris. His sister’s name is Alexa Marion.

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You Can Quote Me

“Mr. Speaker, respectful of the bipartisan spirit in which we try to confront tragic situations in this body, I would ask that when the Assembly adjourns today, we adjourn in memory of the Simon for governor campaign.”

Rialto Democratic Assemblyman John Longville, following Assembly protocol but with a sharpened edge, underscoring recent PR problems in the Simon gubernatorial campaign.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Mark Z. Barabak, Michael Finnegan, Patrick McGreevy and Julie Tamaki.