Last week police dragged Garrett’s body from the cold waters beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, from which, at the age of 48, he had jumped. On one level, his was just another story of a local hero’s shocking suicide. Garrett had become a popular radio talk-show host. He had a college-sweet-heart wife of 25 years, two daughters and a cavernous, art-filled home in posh Marin. Yet after his death, the newspapers found that his main business venture, a sports-memorabilia auction house, had acquired a reputation for selling fake items, and may have sunk into a financial morass that Garrett could no longer hide and didn’t dare reveal.
But his story is more than that of a Gatsby by the Bay. He helped build one of liberalism’s last strongholds–the Bay Area Democratic Party–and bankrolled the rise of California’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. In national politics he embodied the arc of the Democrats’ recent history. His first cause was Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign, which mixed idealism and hard-boiled calculation in a recipe Democrats have since forgotten. After RFK’s assassination, Garrett became a full-fledged liberal, supporting George McGovern, Ted Kennedy and Mandale. In recent years he became more conservative, worrying that Democrats were drifting out of the mainstream on immigration, crime and race. “I’m not sure how we get back in the ball game,” he told NEWSWEEK shortly before his death.
In the political tribe, Garrett will be remembered for who he was–not for whom he supported. Politics now is overrun by technocratic dweebs. Garrett was a messy grab bag of longings–for attention, social justice, respect, the joy of Being in the Boom. He was a roly-poly man with a facile mind, a rueful laugh and a deep need to hear himself talk: not the class president but the kid who put up all the posters. He collected stamps, art, wines, fishing trophies–and he delighted friends with gifts of sports mementos. In recent weeks he’d sent out more–an autographed baseball here, a signed picture there.
Garrett was rare in another way: a man of good will in a business that has few. “Duane represented an amateur political activism that is almost extinct,” said Feinstein consultant Bill Carrick. Garrett praised Republican foes for well-run campaigns, organized post-mortem conferences with them and once quietly sent money to the widow of a GaP operative who had died unexpectedly.
Money–first the lack of it, then raising it for himself and for others–was the center of Garrett’s life. From an old San Francisco family of modest means, he worked his way through Berkeley Law and into a fancy firm. He had already made money trading stamps and art. After the Watergate reforms in 1974, the premium m tuna raising was no longer on those who could raise a million in a call, but on a new breed of fat cat who could raise cash in $1,000 chunks and “bundle” them for delivery. That’s where Garrett’s Rolodex came in so handy.
But being a bundler was a trap for a man with an ego the size of the Bay. Campaigns wanted your phone contacts but not always you. Eager to be admired, Garrett demanded lofty campaign titles as reassurance. He toyed with the idea of running for the Senate, but never did. He ran for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but Ban Brown trounced him. At conferences in recent years, Garrett would hold forth for hours on end. It was a natural transition to a radio call-in show named “Duane’s World.” The day after his body was found, his station rebroadcast the tape of his final show. To some it was a ghoulish act, but Garrett’s fans and friends were glad to hear his voice one last time.
