Commentary: They said Katie Porter was dead politically. I checked her pulse

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SAN FRANCISCO — Katie Porter’s still standing, which is saying something.The last time a significant number of people tuned into California‘s low-frequency race for governor was in October, when Porter’s political obituary was being written in bold type.Immediately after a snappish and off-putting TV interview, Porter showed up in a years-old video profanely reaming a staff member for — the humanity! — straying into the video frame during her meeting with a Biden Cabinet member.Not a good look for a candidate already facing questions about her temperament and emotional regulation.(Hang on, gentle reader, we’ll get to that whole gendered double-standard thing in a moment.)The former Orange County congresswoman had played to the worst stereotypes and that was that.

Her campaign was supposedly kaput.But, lo, these several months later, Porter remains positioned exactly where she’d been before, as one of the handful of top contenders in a race that remains stubbornly formless and utterly wide open.Did she ever think of exiting the contest, as some urged, and others plainly hoped to see? (The surfacing of that surly 2021 video, with the timing and intentionality of a one-two punch, was clearly not a coincidence.)No, she said, not for a moment.“Anyone who thinks that you can just push over Katie Porter has never tried to do it,” she said.Actions that once seemed untoward or shocking are no longer politically disqualifying.The instinct for embattled candidates now is to fight and not surrender.

It’s certainly worked for Trump.Porter apologized and expressed remorse for her tetchy behavior.She promised to do better.“You definitely learn from your mistakes,” the Democrat said this week over a cup of chai in San Francisco’s Financial District.

“I really have and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how do I show Californians who I am and that I really...