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.

During a crisis, the news media and voting public will judge the actions of those who hold or aspire to office.

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.