A Test Flight for Airline Mogul Checchi

Al Checchi could pay cash for the Los Angeles Dodgers--estimated value $300 million--and still have money left over to sign up an all-star team of zillionaire free agents. But the Beverly Hills airline mogul isn’t interested in buying the Dodgers, or even spending his weekends at baseball games. He’d rather hang around politicians at a state party convention.

So what’s wrong with the guy?

He’s got it in his head that it just might be great to be governor. Never mind that he never has held public office before, or even run for one. He grew up outside Washington, D.C., the son of a high-ranking civil servant who loved his job, at a time when John F. Kennedy was inspiring Americans to “ask what you can do for your country.”

Now having helped turn around the Marriott Corp., Walt Disney Inc. and Northwest Airlines--in that order--while amassing a personal fortune estimated at $550 million, Checchi thinks “the highest and best use of my time” could well be governing California.

He has lived in California just 12 years, but has seen enough to believe that the state and local governments are mired in the 1950s. Sacramento especially has failed to adjust to economic and technological changes “and it is retarding the rest of society,” asserts the 48-year-old Democrat.

“I have a history of changing institutions,” he continues. “If you like government the way it is, if you like the direction the state is going, then don’t vote for me.”

Actually, Checchi (pronounced check-ee) is not even sure he’s running. He’ll decide “sometime this summer,” he says, based on whether he can develop a specific program to “materially change the state.” Also, he adds, his wife and three children must agree. Politics, he observes, “is a destructive process” on the family.

Right now, he puts the odds on his running at 50-50. But he’s acting like they’re a lot higher.

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Articulate, handsome, a trim 6-footer, Checchi made the rounds with his wife, Kathryn, at the annual state Democratic convention, the first he has attended. “Listening and learning,” he said, just as he has been the last three months while traveling the state, taking a crash course on government and politics.

This weekend, Checchi was sizing up his potential rivals for the Democratic nomination--Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, state Controller Kathleen Connell and former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. He never before had heard any of them speak.

Checchi took their measure, but they got little of his, because he avoided the speaker’s rostrum. Better to audit this particular class and not be tested at the mike.

Panetta, the Saturday dinner speaker, impressed Checchi. Panetta’s speech “paralleled” one he gave two months ago at Los Angeles Town Hall, Checchi said. “Of the people I heard speak, I enjoyed him the most. He brought passion to what he had to say. It was clever. . . . I’ve always liked Leon.”

That partly may be because of their common Italian heritage, Checchi acknowledged.

Checchi dismissed Feinstein’s luncheon speech as being less about California than her Senate record. He thought Davis’ remarks were “not as focused” as Panetta’s. And he didn’t hear Connell because somebody was talking to him.

He lumps all four into the category of career politician and says, “I’m not afraid” of any of them. “I can present a very distinct choice to the electorate--not necessarily a better choice, but a distinct choice.”

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Checchi is drawing political attention not because of any unique ideas--Democrats all are sounding like echoes--but because of his checkbook. He’s apparently willing to dump at least $25 million of his own money into a primary race.

Rivals who raise private funds face a new spending limit under Proposition 208 of $6 million and an individual contribution cap of $1,000.

“I don’t see unfairness as an issue,” Checchi says. “I have not found anyone who resents me for being willing to put my money where my mouth is. The problems with campaign money have to do with [candidates] putting their mouths where somebody else’s money is.”

Also, unlike his potential rivals, “I haven’t spent 20 years building big [donor] Rolodexes. These people aren’t starting from scratch. It’s not a level playing field.”

That will be easier to explain than why--if he’s so interested in government--he never has voted in a California gubernatorial election or any primary. “I was traveling and remiss in not getting absentee ballots,” Checchi says. “There is no excuse for it.”

But he has one: “A lot of people have stopped voting because they don’t feel it’s going to make a great deal of difference given the choices. And I think in a lot of cases that is true.”

That may be salable, but he’ll need to spend a lot of money for advertising.