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Posted on 10/04/2003 10:20:52 PM PDT by jmstein7
Closet Wacko vs. Mega-fibber; Once again, the California Democratic Party has served up two lousy candidates for governor: Gray Davis and Al Checchi
I have this file, labeled "Gray Davis," that for the last few years I've been stuffing with the bizarre tales quietly shared among journalists and insiders about the man who, though viewed as a blandly pleasant talking head by most Californians, is one of the strangest ducks ever elected to statewide office.
Long protected by the news media, the baby-faced Davis has been allowed to move higher and higher in public office despite his history of physical violence, unhinged hysteria, and gross profanity.
Perhaps you are among the millions never told of Lieutenant Governor Davis's widely known penchant for physically attacking his own staff throughout his career, from his days as chief of staff to ex-Gov. Jerry Brown to his long stint as state controller to his current job.
Davis's hurling of phones and ashtrays at quaking government employees and his incidents of personally shoving and shaking horrified workers--"usually while screaming the f-word with more venom than Nixon," as one former staffer reminds me--bespeak a man who cannot be trusted with power. Since his attacks on subordinates aren't "domestic violence," I need a lexicon that is more Dilbertesque. I propose "office batterer" for your consideration as you observe Davis in his race for the top job.
The most disturbing thing to me is the ease with which California's power elite, many of whom know how unhinged Davis really is, laugh off the public deception as a jolly bit of fun. "He'll never be governor," one Democratic state senator explained to me last year, justifying his own failure to out Davis. "He'll never even be the nominee," the senator insisted.
And that's certainly what I believed until Davis announced his intention to run for governor, and the only apparent Democratic "competition" to step forward was Al Checchi. Checchi is the guy who squeezed $50 million out of a lot of little people 10 years ago in his sudden vault from silver-spooned graduate of Harvard Business School to Texas mega-multimillionaire during the reorganization of Disney. The Disney deal turned Checchi into an overnight player who immediately began dreaming of becoming a Texas senator--or was it governor?
So self-absorbed has been Checchi in building up his millions that, although he has lived in Beverly Hills for much of this decade, he's so uninvolved that most of my friends still think he comes from somewhere in Northern California. But he has been an Angeleno for a decade--whenever he wasn't decamped to his second mansion, on Lake Harriot in Minneapolis, to oversee the takeover of Northwest Airlines. Throughout the civic debates that have embroiled Los Angeles, Checchi has been a cipher. He is a leading champion of no causes, has established no meaningful charities, left no laudable trace. He's the 312th richest man in America, and nobody can even pronounce his name.
So it was with alarm that I reviewed the very similar speeches given by these two men as they offered ways to reform the dismal academics in California's public schools--a scandal that many observers believe will be the hot issue of the governor's race.
In his speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last week, Checchi at least had the nerve to identify teacher incompetence and lack of teacher testing as a key problem. Davis, who has long slept with the powerful anti-reform teacher's unions in Los Angeles and other cities, could not bring himself to utter such blasphemy. In his only major divergence from Checchi, in a speech to Town Hall of Los Angeles in September, Davis largely blamed parents. Both seem utterly unaware that incompetent, career principals are the greater problem.
Observing this pair of troubling yet powerful men, the notion struck me: isn't it a fatal flaw of the Republicans, not the Democrats, to select candidates for top office who have no right to lead a civil society? How did the Democrats suddenly acquire Dan Quayle Disease, after years of happily carping about the Republicans' penchant for nominating louts and fools? Why on earth is the California Democratic Party allowing such sour milk to rise to the top, when California so desperately needs great men and women in charge?
One cannot get a straight answer to these questions via official channels. Bob Mulholland, the state Democratic Party spokesman, got irate at me and actually tried to claim that the party "had absoltuely nothing to do with anointing these two men. I don't know what country you think this is. It's the will of the voters."
Come again, Bob?
At least one can delve into the true nature of the life and times of the darkly disturbing Davis and of checkbook Checchi, as his detractors predictably dub him.
Both men have based their considerable career successes on the perpetuation of carefully crafted whoppers about themselves, and this fact is central to understanding why neither should ever be governor.
"I guess Gray's biggest lie," says his former staffer, "is pretending that he operates within the bounds of normalcy, which is not true. This is not a normal person. I will never forget the day he physically attacked me, because even though I knew he had done it before to many others, you always want to assume that Gray would never do it to you, or that he has finally gotten help."
On the day in question, in the mid-1990s, the staffer was explaining to Davis that his quest for an ever-larger campaign chest (an obsession that, employees say, led Davis to routinely break fundraising rules by using state government personnel and other resources to arrange political fundraisers and identify sources of money) had run into a snafu: a major funding source had dried up. Recalls the former staffer, "He just went into one of his rants of, 'Fuck the fucking fuck, fuck, fuck!' I can still hear it ringing in my ears. When I stood up to insist that he not talk to me that way, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. I was so stunned I said, 'Good God, Gray! Stop and look at what you are doing! Think what you are doing to me!' And he just could not stop."
Perhaps the worst incident was Davis's attack four years ago on a woman we'll call K., his loyal executive secretary in Los Angeles who acted as chief apologist for his violent "incidents."
K. refuses to discuss the assault on her with the media but has relayed much of the story to me through a series of interviews with a close friend. On the day in question, state Controller Davis was in a purple rage because an employee had rearranged framed bond-sale notices on his office walls. When K. entered his office, he shouted, "Fucking pictures!" and violently shoved her out of his way, according to employees who were present. K. ran out, broke down in sobs, and was briefly hospitalized at Cedars Sinai for a severe, stress-related dermatologic reaction.
According to one close friend, though K. suffered an emotional breakdown, she refused to sue Davis, despite the advice of several friends, after a prominent L.A. attorney told her Davis could ruin her. According to one state official, K., protected by civil service, was allowed to continue working under Davis from her home for three months "because she refused to work in Davis's presence." (Checchi's campaign needs a copy of the tape recording Davis left on K.'s home telephone, in which he offers no apology but requests that she return to work, saying, "You know how I am.")
Well, we do now, Gray.
Of course, the problem is that Davis's only serious Democratic opponent, Checchi--though not missing obvious nuts or bolts like Davis--has also built his entire public life on a disturbing fabrication which throws into serious doubt his ability and worthiness to run California state government.
As San Jose Mercury News political editor Philip Trounstine and New Times writer David Pasztor showed in recent exposes of Checchi's history at Northwest Airlines, Checchi's claims that he "saved" Northwest in a dramatic takeover in 1989, and that he deserves to be governor of California because he is a turnaround genius, are not supported by the facts.
Northwest was not, in fact, a troubled airline when Checchi--using inside information from his best college buddy who sat on Northwest's board of directors--dreamed up a plan for buying up Northwest stock with other investors' money and forcing Northwest to sell the company to Checchi and pals. In fact, the company spiraled into trouble and near-bankruptcy under Checchi in the midst of the recession, requiring both major union concessions in 1993 and a huge state government bailout in 1992.
Yet Checchi still openly chortles about how he risked less than $10 million of his own money on the original $3.65 billion takeover, which has today made him a very rich man. "He is very, very proud and has every reason to be," insists Darry Sragow, Checchi's campaign manager.
With two men running for governor who are so willing to trade on public misimpressions of them, it seems clear to me that the use of "opposition research" may play a more crucial role than ever before in the race for California governor. (Op research is the practice of hiring political assassins to dig up dirt. The damaging info is then: a) quietly fed to major news media outlets, or b) dangled before the offending candidate in private as a way to drive him or her out of the race or shut them up on an important campaign issue.)
Garry South, the talented campaign manager hired by Davis, has hired op research whiz Ace Smith (I'm not kidding about that name) who operates in the Bay Area. Sragow, the inspired campaign manager hired by Checchi, has hired the Berkeley and Houston firm of Rice and Veroga.
I asked both camps if they intend to go after the really Big Lies both men are spinning: Davis as the mild-mannered man of decency, Checchi as the savvy savior of troubled institutions.
Says Elena Stern, an official with Checchi's campaign: "Al is adamant about not running a negative campaign, so he will only offer comparisons, not attacks." One "comparison" Stern pointed out is that Davis's camp planted a hit story against Checchi in the San Francisco Chronicle claiming that Checchi faces a discrimination lawsuit by a fired worker. The fine print, however, is that the suit was thrown out by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and arguably has little remaining merit. Says Stern, "By comparison, Gray Davis actually lost a race discrimination lawsuit" filed by a former female employee.
Fine, but is the Checchi camp going to unveil to voters Davis's history of closed-door "incidents" and hysterical fits? Sragow says he "questions whether the way a candidate acts in private has anything legitimate to do with the governor's campaign. So I don't think you'll be hearing from us about whatever violence is alleged amongst Gray's staff or others."
By contrast, South, who admits that Ace Smith has been digging up dirt on Checchi "for nearly a year" seems far more prepared to discuss the lie holding up the house that Checchi built.
"Until he fucked up Northwest Airlines, Checchi had visions of sugar plums about running for office in Minnesota, and there were numerous local news reports about that in '89, '90 and '91, and about Checchi even meeting with political consultants," says South. "He denies it now because he needs to look like a loyal longtime resident of California, but we think voters should know that Checchi's interest in California is recent indeed."
This ploy of trying to deny one's sudden, self-serving interest in California didn't work for another carpetbagging multimillionaire, Michael Huffington, and it is likely to backfire on Checchi as well. California voters will be disturbed to know that shortly after the employees bailed out Northwest and Minnesota spent nearly $1 billion saving the airline, Checchi sold his Minneapolis mansion in 1994, abandoned all thought of running for office there, and escaped to Beverly Hills. Once back, he barely took a breath before hiring consultants to explore his run for California governor.
These two dreary Democratic choices for governor leave me hoping that DiFi will jump in. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's hatred for Gray Davis is well-known, and a source close to her confirmed to me last week that "she is still weighing a late entry"--in part because she can't imagine a worse fiasco than Governor Gray. And there's a solid chance that the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Attorney General Dan Lungren, can beat the two tainted Democrats at the polls next year. But unfortunately, Lungren is as free of meaningful ideas as Kathleen Brown, the Democrat who ran for governor in 1994, and voters may reject Lungren as completely as they did Brown.
So my question is simple: How did we get stuck hoping that the job of governor of California, one of the most important positions of power in the Western world, does not go to a mega-fibber or a closet wacko?
The Democratic Party likes to wheeze on about how it has all the answers. I'd love to hear them explain this one.
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How sad that our country has sunk to the level of electing such vile people to high office.
God help us all!
Never forget who/what it is CA is getting rid of on Tuesday!
That's right.
And never forget what we do not need -- don't vote Scwharzenegger. Don't play dat game.
Isn't that another way of saying, "Elect Bustamante?"
Terminator vs Mexifornicator-- which do you chose?
But hey! He's a democRAT!
We let democRATs off the hook for such things. (wink-wink, nod-nod)
Heck, us West Coasters even elect known rapists as presidents as long as they're democRATs!
No.
Don't play dat game.
I posted this about Davis first many years ago.
Don't plat that game. Don't vote liberal left.
Don't vote Bustamante. Don't vote Schwarzenegger.
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