One step ahead of the police, I left New York for Europe at the end of my senior year at college in 1969 and 2 years later I was living, placidly, in Afghanistan. Yesterday, another alum from Stony Brook University, Mitchel Cohen, noted that one of our fellow students, Larry Remer-- today a political operative in San Diego usually referred to as "take-no-prisoners" or "scorched-earth" campaign consultant-- is in the news. Cohen noted that the last time he had seen Remer, "he was in one of the Red Balloon affinity groups driving Mike Zweig's van in 1971 back from the protests on MayDay in D.C. We were rear-ended in Wilmington Delaware by a Hertz Truck filled with Stony Brookers and driven by Fred Friedman (who claimed the brakes failed). I was flown to the hospital by police helicopter." He isn't sure if he and Remer ever saw each other after that.Remer, who is usually associated with conservative Democrats-- like now-Congressman Juan Vargas and now Trump crackpot trade advisor Peter Navarro. (Navarro, a former Republican turned Democrat and environmentalist was a fringe economist who ran for office, unsuccessfully, 5 times in San Diego-- for mayor, city council, board of supervisors and Congress. Remer ran two of Navarro’s campaigns, and now describes him as "the biggest asshole I’ve ever known." Go Stony Brook!Always superficial and generally unreliable Politico reporter Carla Marinucci, wrote that "Today, Remer says he’s not surprised that Navarro has wedged his way into Trump’s inner circle or that he has stubbornly defended his credentials (a Ph.D in economics) on the issue of prescribing hydroxychloroquine, even though it’s put him in conflict with Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease expert and the longtime director of the National Institute Of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 'He totally had a sense of his own righteousness ...and it may have been ultimately his undoing, because he was so totally arrogant about it,' Remer said. 'I can totally see him taking on Fauci....it fits, because he really believes that he alone knows the truth.'"
Former California Republican Party chair Ron Nehring, who also served as San Diego County GOP chair, tweeted about Navarro Monday, saying he would rely on Fauci’s comments on medical expertise over Navarro's every time. He later deleted his Twitter comments.“We all know Peter Navarro in San Diego,” Nehring said in the deleted tweet. “He ran for office four times as a Democrat, each time moving around the county. He was defeated every time.”San Diego Republicans say Navarro’s unfailing belief in his own intellect coupled with his repeated efforts to win elected office were at times the source of astonishment.“He was a hothead who wasn’t quite sure when to bend, and when to back off...He was a guy who kept running against Republicans...with all the typical rhetoric you would expect from a Democrat,’’ said one GOP insider, who declined to be named for publication.Navarro made so many bids for public office that it became an inside joke to some party regulars. "You know that game, ‘Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?’," the insider said, recalling that one GOP operative “had a map on his office wall that was called, “Where in San Diego is Peter Navarro?” which featured “all the places he moved to, in order to keep running for office.”More than one of those campaigns were dogged by headlines related to Navarro’s past troubles.In his 1992 campaign for San Diego mayor, Navarro paid $4,000 in fines and court costs for violating city and state election laws in connection with loans received from his mother. The San Diego Union Tribune reported that then-Deputy City Attorney Richard Ostrow, who headed the city’s DA’s public integrity division, said the fines were leveraged because of “a pattern of disdain for the reporting laws that we’ve seen in the past from Peter Navarro.”The Union Tribune also reported that, in a separate action, the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission also fined Navarro for improperly reporting loans.Navarro also “defaulted on a federally funded student loan” as a student at Tufts University, and was sued in 1979 in Boston Municipal Court by university trustees for his failure to replay the $1,652.83 loan, the paper said.Navarro’s temperament and penchant for over-the-top political comments were his undoing in the often-fractious campaigns, says Remer.At one point in his mayoral campaign, Navarro accused Republican Susan Golding of having a male prostitute on her campaign finance committee, a remark for which he later apologized. Golding had accused Navarro of accepting campaign funds from pornographers; Navarro said he was not aware the funds had come from owners of local adult book stores, the Union Tribune reported.
Golding won that race and became mayor of San Diego. Last night, Navarro-- crazy as ever-- was a pointlessly obnoxious guest on 60 Minutes where he issued a bravado-laden challenge: "I challenge you: Show me the 60 Minutes episode a year ago, two years ago, or during the Obama administration, during the Bush administration, that said, 'Hey, global pandemic's coming, you gotta do X, Y, and Z, and by the way, we would shut down the entire global economy to fight it.' Show me that episode, then you’ll have some credence in terms of attacking the Trump administration for not being prepared." Well... it looks like they do have some credence in terms of attacking the Trumpist regime for not being prepared-- and for making all the wrong decisions since then.