Career Politician, Entrepreneur Battle For Insurance Commissioner
By Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press Writer - October 4, 2006SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ California's insurance commissioner grapples with some weighty issues, from busting fraud to enforcing rates. Democrat Cruz Bustamante has spent this year busting flab, making his personal weight-loss crusade a centerpiece of his campaign for the office.
Bustamante's Web site chronicles his own struggles and progress along a journey in which he says he has shed 64 pounds. With an upbeat, "Yes you can!" tone, it shows him jogging and offers fat-fighting recipes such as "Cruz's Healthy Breakfast Frittata."
It's a hefty political gamble in an unusual race that pits Bustamante--the two-term lieutenant governor--against relative unknown Republican Steve Poizner, a former high-tech CEO, teacher and White House aide. The two men share a birthday and an ambition for the insurance commissioner's office, but not much else.
Bustamante, 53, asked voters for a promotion during the 2003 recall campaign, when he sought unsuccessfully to become the state's first Hispanic governor since 1875. Forced out of the lieutenant governor's job by term limits, he's now seeking a lateral move to insurance commissioner. And forced off his easy chair by a doctor's warning, he seeks a downward move on the scale.
His slim-down campaign started Jan. 2, when Bustamante weighed in at 278. He said he weighed 214 in mid-September, within striking distance of his near-term goal of 208.
"I'm still obese. I'm still way overweight," he said in a telephone interview.
Poizner, 49, is a slender billionaire with an impressive resume, though one lean on political experience. He's a bit skeptical about Bustamante's battle-of-the-bulge platform.
"I don't think it was proper for him to take the campaign so lightly for so long," Poizner said.
After Labor Day, Bustamante added an official campaign Web site devoted to his run for insurance commissioner and says the dieting regimen "is not my primary message."
Yet he said he sees a "clear nexus" between obesity and the insurance-watchdog office, because being overweight takes a toll on California that can be measured in dollars.
His new campaign Web site is sure to leave the curious voter hungry for more information. It is notably thin on details about what Bustamante would do if elected. It does, however, contain a chunky link to the weight-loss Web site.
Neither man is trying to sell himself on the depth of his insurance knowledge, although the commissioner regulates an industry that collects some $120 billion in auto, workers' compensation, homeowners' and health care premiums a year. The office investigates insurance cheats and protects consumers from unscrupulous insurance practices.
Poizner makes the case that his experience running a business, his year as a public-school teacher, his involvement in a 1982 civil-rights case and his work in the Bush White House qualify him.
The company he once headed, SnapTrack, developed technology that used global-positioning satellites to help emergency-services workers pinpoint the locations of cell phones. He sold it to telecom giant Qualcomm for about $1 billion in 2000.
One week before the 2001 terrorist attacks, Poizner began a fellowship at the White House. His assignment as National Security Council director of critical infrastructure protection instantly took on immense importance. His job was to catalog potential terror vulnerabilities such as power plants and computer networks.
Many Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves from the unpopular president. Poizner does not boast of his links to Bush, whom he served in the nonpartisan White House fellowship program and later backed financially for re-election.
In April, Bush paid brief tribute to Poizner and other Republican candidates at a fundraiser in the desert resort city of Indian Wells, near Palm Springs.
Yet during the 2000 presidential campaign, Poizner donated $1,000 to Democrat Al Gore, and another $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee. He made no donations to Bush then.
In 2001, he and his wife donated $4,000 to both Democratic Sen. John Kerry and to a deeply conservative Republican House candidate in Kansas, Kris Kobach--a friend from the White House fellowship, Poizner says.
He contributed $2,000 to Bush's re-election fund in 2003, nearly $10,000 to the California Republican Party in 2005 and $1,000 to the Santa Clara County GOP this year.
"You absolutely shouldn't read anything into any of those contributions other than our desire to meet people, hear them speak, learn about them, get more information about people on both sides of the aisle," he said.
He refused to say whether he thought Gore was a better candidate than Bush in 2000, explaining the donation to the vice president by saying his wife, a lifelong Democrat, wanted to see Gore.
Bustamante said that while he has left a trail of votes and actions as a state assemblyman and lieutenant governor, voters have few indicators of Poizner's history and thus few hints of his future actions.
"How many other questions like that are we going to not know about a candidate who's used to being in the private sector, who is a billionaire who has never been responsible to the public?" the lieutenant governor asked.
Poizner poured $6 million of his own money into an unsuccessful bid for a state Assembly seat in 2004. He and his family have spent about $4.2 million on the insurance commissioner run, and he has placed no caps on what he will spend this year.
"I'll put in whatever it takes for me to get my message across," he said, adding that he also is raising money in an effort to demonstrate broad support.
Bustamante said he has returned about $150,000 in contributions because they came from insurance industry sources, including agents and companies.
He said his effort to raise money has been, like his weight-loss bid, a struggle.
"Resources are extremely tight" because of the competition among candidates, he said.
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