Election 2006: Steve and Cruz Get Even

Fresh developments from the major party campaigns to become California's next Insurance Commissioner:

• The Field Poll, generally deemed the most reputable and reliable of California polls, has released its first overview of the state of the non-gubernatorial November electoral races.   Unsurprisingly, the Democratic candidates currently hold significant leads over their Republican opponents in the run for  the higher profile positions such as Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and Treasurer.   The contest of most interest to this weblog, for Insurance Commissioner, is significantly closer.   As Bill Bradley reports, Cruz Bustamante holds a lead over Steve Poizner, but it is slim enough to count as a statistical dead heat at 43% to 39%. 

• Decs&Excs continues to search for some definitive statement of the candidates' positions on the issues.  The closest approach so far may be this San Diego Union-Tribune article from June.  Its sub-head -- "Two don't have must experience" -- says a lot about the state of insurance regulation in California, and it is perhaps telling that the article devotes a long paragraph to Bustamante's past campaign finance indiscretions. (More on that subject below.)

Here the Union-Tribune offers a fleeting glimpse into the candidates' agendas:

Bustamante wants to consolidate the state's regulation of workers compensation and health care insurance under a single agency, preferably the Department of Insurance.

Poizner also has plans for health care insurance and fraud.  He wants to take a serious look at converting medical records, now kept largely on paper, to secure electronic files.  The transition could save millions that could be passed on in lower health care insurance premiums, he said.

* * *

Both candidates also will have to take a stance on Proposition 103's undelivered promise to reduce the significance of ZIP codes and make individual driving records the dominant factor in rates.

Poizner said he opposes the industry's reliance on ZIP codes, but does not support new guidelines Garamendi has proposed to minimize the weight of ZIP codes in the formula.  Bustamante said he was still analyzing Garamendi's regulations.

Decs&Excs will join Mr. Bustamante in analyzing those regulations -- now approved for implementation by the state Office of Administrative Law -- in a forthcoming post.

• The conventional wisdom since Bustamante announced his candidacy has been of the "good news - bad news" variety: The good news is that he has much higher name recognition than Steve Poizner; the bad news is that Bustamante is well known in largely negative ways, having first turned his back on Democratic governor Gray Davis by running to replace him if/when he was recalled and then having been beaten convincingly by Arnold Schwarzenegger for Davis' job.   A Field Poll summary last November remarked:

A recall campaign for governor didn't help Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who's running for insurance commissioner.  He's known by 73 percent of the voters, but more than half of those voters, 38 percent, have an unfavorable opinion of him.

• One area in which the candidates are not even is their campaign coffers.  The most current campaign finance information on the Secretary of State's site shows that as of June 30 the official Bustamante campaign had $387,988.17 on hand, while the official Poizner campaign committee boasted a rather more impressive $2,431,062.11. 

Where is the money coming from?  Not for the most part from the insurance industry.  Insurers' public images are sufficiently negative in California that taking money from them while campaigning to obtain regulatory authority over them is not encouraged.  Cruz Bustamante, who took plentiful heat during his gubernatorial run for the large sums he accepted from Native American gaming interests, was accepting insurance company money early on, but was shamed into giving much of it back prior to the Democratic primary in June.  Steve Poizner, meanwhile, has repeatedly disavowed any intention of accepting contributions from insurance sources -- easily done, given that he is in a position to infuse large sums of personal cash into his campaign if needed.

• UPDATE [1305 PDT]:  The Poizner campaign has wasted no time in distributing an e-mail spinning Bustamante's modest lead as a sign of vulnerability.  I have uploaded a copy, accessible via this link [HTML document].   Among other reports quoted in the release is a Sacramento Bee column from Dan Walters, pointing out that vocally conservative Republican candidates are all lagging well behind their Democratic opponents while more moderate Republicans -- such as Poizner -- are within striking distance or even, in the special case of Governor Schwarzenegger, running well ahead.