Carmona's focus: Jobs, immigration

Richard Carmona's television campaign ads paint a rugged portrait of the Democratic Senate candidate: a decorated Green Beret, a trauma surgeon, a SWAT team leader and a U.S. surgeon general who battled "political interference" from higher-ups in President George W. Bush's administration.

Richard Carmona

Age: 62.

Education: Bronx Community College of the City, University of New York, associate degree, 1973; University of California-San Francisco, bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry, 1977; University of California-San Francisco, medical degree, 1979; University of Arizona, master's degree in public health, 1998.

Family: Wife Diane. Four children.

Work experience: Vice chairman, Canyon Ranch, 2006-present; president, Canyon Ranch Institute, 2006-present; and distinguished professor of public health, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, 2006-present. Past: Department surgeon, SWAT-team leader and deputy, Pima County Sheriff's Department, 1986-2002.

Previous public office: U.S. surgeon general, 2002-06.

Top issues:

Job creation.

Immigration reform.

Balanced budget.

Social Security and Medicare preservation.

National security and veterans issues.

Women's health care.

Source: Carmona's campaign website, carmonaforarizona.com/priorities

During the Vietnam War, Carmona was awarded two Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts and a combat medical badge. His law-enforcement experience with the Pima County Sheriff's Department includes action-packed episodes such as a risky 1992 mountainside rescue of a helicopter-crash survivor and a 1999 gunbattle in which he killed a man who was menacing a woman. Carmona was wounded in the leg during a 1988 SWAT standoff in which an armed man was killed.

"He's a local hero and a national hero," said veteran Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat. "I have nothing but admiration and respect for this guy. He's a brilliant doctor and an extremely talented individual."

But Carmona, 62, also has long been dogged by questions about his leadership style, which critics characterize as contentious.

The acting Health and Human Services Department deputy who supervised him as surgeon general told a congressional investigatory committee in 2007 that she felt threatened by him.

And his career in southern Arizona's health-care industry has been at times controversial, with him leaving two high-profile positions amid criticism.

Those episodes are providing fodder for Carmona's opponent, Republican Rep. Jeff Flake. Polls indicate the race is neck and neck.

But Carmona's experience working with members of both parties is complicating Flake's efforts to portray him as a "rubber stamp" for President Barack Obama, who with other senior Democrats encouraged him to seek the seat of retiring GOP Sen. Jon Kyl as a Democrat.

A lifelong registered independent, Carmona was nominated as the nation's 17th surgeon general by Bush, a Republican, in 2002 and strongly endorsed for that position by Arizona's two Republican senators.

Carmona, who lists on his campaign website priorities that include job creation, comprehensive immigration reform, women's issues and preserving Social Security, boasts that Republicans had previously tried to recruit him to run for governor and Congress.

"When I read his resume, I have to tell you that it seems it's like a resume from 10 different people," actress Lynda Carter, best known for her role as 1970s television superhero "Wonder Woman," said at a recent "Women for Carmona" event in Scottsdale. "I have played the role. He is the role."

A long resume

While his ads highlight his achievements, there is more to Carmona's resume than battlefield and law-enforcement heroics.

He helped establish Tucson Medical Center's trauma unit but was let go in 1993, according to contemporary media reports. He sued and secured a public apology and a confidential settlement that the Arizona Daily Star reported at $3.9million.

Later, he took over the financially troubled Kino Community Hospital in Tucson and ran Pima County's health-care system. Under pressure over financial issues, Carmona stepped down in 1999.

Some of those issues came up a decade ago, when Bush tapped Carmona as surgeon general. Only now are they becoming election-season fodder because, unlike Flake, a six-term congressman who won the Republican Senate nomination after a no-holds-barred primary fight, Carmona ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Now, Flake has started making an issue of Carmona's past in campaign mailers and ads.

For his part, Carmona pointed out that the issues in his health-care-management career were known to the senators who considered his nomination as surgeon general. He said he made tough leadership decisions at the time "with compassion for the people."

"But here's the important point: Every one of those allegations was investigated by the U.S. Senate when I went up for confirmation," Carmona said after the Scottsdale event. "And I received a unanimous confirmation from the United States Senate, so that should answer any questions as to the veracity of any of those allegations."

An exhaustive 2002 Los Angeles Times report on Carmona raised questions about his temperament and management skills, spotlighting allegations that he bullied a nurse in 1991, drove off Kino Community Hospital's veteran chief of surgery in 1996 and berated a member of the Pima County Health Care Commission in 1999.

The late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., asked about his "confrontational" style at Carmona's July9, 2002, Senate confirmation hearing and specifically cited his publicized clash with Sylvia Campoy, the health commissioner.

Carmona said some personal friction was inevitable as an "agent of change," charged with introducing "contemporary management techniques to a dying system that is struggling to care for indigent patients."

"At times, that is upsetting to people who live in the status quo for a long time," Carmona said at the hearing. "And because of that, sometimes those of us who do step out might be characterized as confrontational. … But I would say emphatically that I always treated my patients, my staff and co-workers with the greatest respect."

However, questions about the way Carmona has treated colleagues did not end when he became surgeon general.

In May, Politico reported allegations against Carmona made in secret 2007 testimony before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee by Cristina Beato, who oversaw the surgeon general in her role as acting assistant secretary of health. According to the transcript of her testimony, Beato said Carmona "has problems with women" and "had a very difficult time having a female Hispanic supervisor."

Beato, a single mother, also alleged that twice Carmona pounded on her door after midnight in an effort to resume ongoing arguments and that she felt threatened by his behavior. Beato and Carmona both resided on the National Institutes of Health campus in Maryland.

The Carmona campaign has dismissed Beato's claims as fiction.

"This was a lady that was very politically motivated, who was aspiring to a higher position and then lied on her resume and got caught, and we held her accountable, so she lashed out," Carmona said. "But the fact is that Congress investigated those allegations, and they were all found to be false."

In a telephone interview, Beato said that her testimony was delivered under oath and was truthful and that Congress did not investigate her claims. She acknowledged making mistakes on her resume but said that Bush continued to stand by her nomination.

"No, I do not make this stuff up," Beato told The Republic. "And I did fear for my life, and I am not a little withering flower, either. It was personally very frightening."

Political leanings

In ads, the Flake campaign has tried to portray Carmona as a "rubber stamp" for Obama, arguing that a vote for Carmona equals a vote for the president's agenda.

Carmona counters that even as a presidential appointee, he was hardly a mouthpiece for Bush.

In fact, his battle with the Bush administration and his claim that officials tried to muzzle him on health issues such as stem-cell research and the dangers of secondhand smoke are part of his campaign narrative that he is not beholden to either political party.

Carmona, who is of Puerto Rican descent, has courted moderate voters and presented himself as an independent-minded problem solver who could forge solutions to lingering issues such as the broken immigration system and help restore the public's trust in government.

"I was an independent when I was surgeon general ? and always saw my job as really being nonpartisan in dealing with health and safety and security issues of the nation," Carmona said earlier this year in a Fox News Latino interview.

"But as I moved forward to be considering running for the U.S. Senate and I looked at where the Republican Party was on certain issues in my state, like on women's health, on immigration, some of the educational issues, I really couldn't align with them there. The fact is that the Democratic Party was more closely aligned with where my values were on key issues in our state."

'Take-charge guy'

Former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., a Carmona supporter, described Carmona as "a take-charge guy" and speculated that might rub some the wrong way.

"When you are a leader, sometimes the people you lead don't always agree with you," said DeConcini, who held the Senate seat Carmona is seeking from 1977 to 1995. "That's what I chalk it up to. He may have a temper. Hell, I don't know who hasn't ever gotten mad. I have never seen that."

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., another Carmona ally, was a Pima County supervisor when Carmona headed Kino Community Hospital and the county health system. Although Carmona's tenure was turbulent, Grijalva credited him with stabilizing the hospital and laying the groundwork for its eventual transformation.

Any personality clashes stemmed from Carmona's effort to move the hospital in a different direction and "was part of making the omelet," Grijalva said. "In the heat of the battle, I didn't always agree with him, but I'll give him his due. He was very persuasive and talked about the fact that if we are going to turn this hospital around, we're going to have to take some risks. … I'm glad we took some of those risks."

Carmona also has taken risks during his long association with the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Dupnik, the Pima County sheriff, praised Carmona as "a tremendously courageous individual" who saved lives when he returned fire and killed a violent, mentally disturbed man in a Sept.18, 1999, off-duty gunbattle in Tucson. The celebrated 1992 rescue, in which Carmona dangled from a helicopter, was so dangerous that Dupnik said he would never have allowed it had he been aware of what Carmona was planning to do.

"We have a joke around the department: When we see on TV some disaster or emergency happening on a national level, we always look to see if Carmona is there," Dupnik said. "He just has a knack for being in the right place at the right time."

Copyright 2012 The Arizona Republic|azcentral.com. All rights reserved.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted

View the original article here