Final Statewide election results for
Insurance Commissioner
(from the Official "Statement of the Vote"
released by the California Secretary of State

Dale F. Ogden: 305,772 votes,
3.7% of the vote,
the 2nd highest total of any non-Republicrat candidate.
Marian Smithson, Libertarian, for State Treasurer,
is higher, with 334,054, 4.1% of the vote.

Congratulations to Steve Poizner, with more than
4.2 million votes (50.9%), who I fully expect will be a more
competent Insurance Commissioner (with more common
sense) than we've had in California for the last 18 years.

As a Libertarian he believes that the state regulation of insurance harms consumers by interfering with the natural competitive forces of the several hundred insurance companies licensed in California.

However, unlike his two elected predecessors, a Democrat and a Republican, and his opponents, he believes that California insurance laws should be enforced as they are written, for the benefit of the citizens of California, not as the Insurance Commissioner decides would best further his and his partisan allies' political careers.

In 1998, Dale F. Ogden was the Libertarian candidate for Insurance Commissioner and warned of some of the corrupt practices of Chuck Quakenbush and several of his chief lieutenants. Their corruption was exceeded only by their incompetence and arrogance. Quackenbush ultimately was forced to resign in disgrace in July 2000.

In 2002, Dale F. Ogden was the Libertarian candidate for Insurance Commissioner and and warned of the unconstitutional and impractical regulations proposed by the incumbent, John Garemendi. As long ago as January 1990, Mr. Ogden was the author of a critical analysis of the impractical regulations proposed by John Garemendi, allegedly to implement Proposition 103. The California Supreme Court ultimately agreed with Mr. Ogden's analysis and declared Garamendi's regulations unconstitutional.

We have now had four elections in California for Insurance Commissioner. Both Quackenbush (1994 and 1998) and Garamendi (1990 and 2002) attempted to extort, more or less successfully, campaign contributions from insurance companies, presumably hoping to build war chests for future campaigns for higher office. Both grossly abused their position as Insurance Commissioner to further their personal and political goals (fortunately for California, they both failed).

Hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been wasted and billions of dollars of excessive insurance premiums have been paid by the California citizens in the years since the first elected Insurance Commissioner assumed office in January 1990. Neither Democratic nor Republican Insurance Commissioners have been able to resist their urges to build political empires with your tax dollars and your insurance premiums. To the contrary, they attempted to manipulate and control insurance markets for their personal and political gain.

Isn't it time to elect an Insurance Commissioner whose only allegiance is to the people of California, not to the power stucture of the Democratic and Republican parties?

Isn't it time to elect an Insurance Commissioner who will allow the hundreds of insurance companies licensed in California to compete for business based on price and quality of service, like most other businesses compete? Had this been done by Quackenbush and Garamendi, the public would have saved billions of dollars in automobile insurance premiums alone.

The California Insurance Department budget has increased nearly 700% since 1988, when it was only $28 million! Let's elect an Insurance Commissioner who knows how to cut more than $150 million of administrative bloat from the $200+ million budget of the insurance department without cutting a single important service to the public!

Let's elect an Insurance Commissioner whose knowledge of and varied experience with insurance regulation in all fifty states has shown him what works and what doesn't!

Let's elect Dale F. Ogden to be our next Insurance Commissioner!

Vote for Dale F. Ogden, Libertarian!

It's a vote for
Honest, Competent,
Insurance Regulation
in California...

...for a change!

Candidate Dale F. Ogden was prophetic in his 1998 Campaign for Insurance Commissioner

“Quackenbush deserves two terms; one term as Insurance Commissioner and one term in prison.”

— Dale F. Ogden, Wednesday, April 29, 1998

Did You Ever See A Meme Walking?
Thomas L. Knapp (of Rational Review)
defines Libertarianism

"There is only one way to kill capitalism:
by taxes, taxes, and more taxes."
— Karl Marx

Libertarians are NOT extremists!
"...in America today there exists a deep popular antagonism toward Washington special interests, and that sentiment can be mobilized for various agendas--from the nativist right to the libertarian center to the protectionist left."
– John B. Judis, The New Republic, March 27, 2000

- H.L. Mencken

"Unionism seldom, if ever, uses such power as it has to insure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work."

- H.L. Mencken

"Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizen has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jongg factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half."

- H.L. Mencken

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

- H. L. Mencken

"No matter how much of our liberty Washington takes away in the name of security, there are no guarantees that there won't be another terrorist attack. Instead of attacking American liberties, the government ought to go after terrorists in their countries of origin. It should be like what our military attempted during WWII. Don't wait to defend ships against the kamikaze -- bomb the fields where they take off. We know the countries who sponsor, support and harbor terrorists. They are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and a few others. The president should put these countries on credible notice that should United States suffer a terrorist attack and our intelligence discovers that, say, Saudi Arabia financed, assisted or harbored the terrorists, there would be a massive military retaliation that would not exclude nuclear weapons. ...I detest the initiation of force, but if I see someone building a cannon aimed at my house, I'm not going to wait for him to fire it. I would eliminate him and anyone else in his house before he gets a chance to fire it. But then again, I'm not a member of America's sissified generation."

— Walter Williams

"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

— T.S. Eliot, 1950

It's the Stupidity, Stupid

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."

— Columnist P.J. O'Rourke.

Giving power to politicians is like giving
whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
– P.J. O'Rourke

The term "bipartisan" usually means
some larger-than-normal government
deception is taking place.