During a crisis, the news media and voting public will judge the actions of those who hold or aspire to office.
In 2000, in response to the frustration of 23 million California HMO consumers, I was appointed by then-California Gov. Gray Davis to be the nation’s first “HMO czar.” The new agency I was running was the largest health reform project in the country since the Great Society of the late 1960s and remained so until Obamacare came along.
Crises — either real or merely perceived — can make or break political careers as news media and the voting public judge how those who hold or aspire to office respond.