MEET DARIO FROMMER

Claudia Peschiutta

GLENDALE -- What started as a ploy to meet girls landed a 17-year-old

Dario Frommer his first state office -- youth governor of the YMCA “Youth

and Government” program.

“I ran against a guy who was sort of the heir-apparent,” he said. “I

beat him. That was a big deal.”

At 36, the Los Feliz resident credits that successful campaign for

helping to lead him to his second run for state office as the Democratic

candidate for the 43rd Assembly District seat.

His mother, Rosa Frommer, remembers first noticing her eldest son’s

interest in politics when he was still in elementary school.

“He wanted to talk about it with people,” she said.

The seeds of that interest were probably planted by Rosaand her

husband, Roger, both Democrats, who often discussed politics and

volunteered on campaigns.

But as a kid growing up in Glendale, Frommer said he wanted to become

a journalist.

While that aspiration remained for several years, by the time Frommer

reached Hoover High School, he began to tend toward a career in politics.

Just ask Leon Wiskup.

The former Hoover English teacher nearly found himself on the road to

the White House, thanks to Frommer and a fellow student.

The boys started a petition to make Wiskup a presidential candidate in

the 1980 election.

The campaign ended, Wiskup said, when the boys found out there was a

$500 filing fee to pay.

“That’s why I never became president of the United States,” he joked.

Glendale Board of Education member Chuck Sambarfirst met Frommer while

serving as vice principal at Hoover and was not surprised to see the teen

who had once been in his leadership class become an Assembly candidate.

“He was really very politically astute,” Sambar said, pointing to

Frommer’s “Youth and Government” campaign.

“It was probably more difficult for him to become the youth governor

of the state than it is for him to be elected to the state Assembly,” he

said.

Frommer also found himself involved in another campaign during his

senior year at Hoover.

As a volunteer for candidate John Anderson in the 1980 presidential

election, the young student was asked to represent Anderson in a debate

against then-Assemblyman Pat Nolan, who stood in for Ronald Reagan, and a

representative from Jimmy Carter’s campaign.

“They were stretched pretty thin,” Frommer said of the Anderson

campaign.

Though the experience was “totally nerve-racking,” Frommer said he got

a lot of compliments.

While an international relations and political science student at

Colgate University in New York, Frommer spent a summer in California as

an intern on then-Assemblyman Art Torres’ 1982 state Senate campaign.

When he returned to Glendale after graduating in 1985, Frommer sought

a job with the state senator, who hired him on as his press secretary.

Frommer went on to work for then-State Controller Gray Davis in but

later left Sacramento to attend UC Davis Law School. After graduating

in 1992, he became a litigator.

“It was so horrible. I hated it,” Frommer said.

He escaped by taking a year off to help run Torres’ 1994 campaign for

state insurance commissioner.

Since then, Frommer has divided his time by working in state politics

-- including a stint as Gov. Davis’ appointment secretary -- and the law.

Sambar is convinced Frommer will make it up to the Assembly and

beyond.

“This is another step in a life that Dario has chosen and I think that

with his commitment and his energy, it will not be his last step,” he

said. “It is just a beginning.”

THE FROMMER FILE

* NAME: Dario Frommer, Democratic candidate for the 43rd Assembly

District.

* AGE: 36.

* RESIDENCE: Los Feliz.

* FAMILY: Single.

* POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: Frommer has worked on campaigns for Art Torres

and Gray Davis. He served as Gov. Davis’ appointment secretary in 1999.