Rich Candidates Can’t Be Bought

Last month, columnist Kenneth L. Khachigian thrashed liberal Democrat Ted Turner for donating $1 billion to the United Nations to aid the disadvantaged and destitute poor of this universe.

On Oct. 12, he hurled his political mud pie at Mr. Alfred Checchi, a multimillionaire Democrat whom Khachigian accused of wanting to buy the election for governor of California.

So what’s new and wrong with that?

Republicans in this decade started it all, and I applauded each one of them: Undeclared Republican Ross Perot and his $60 million or so in the 1992 presidential election; Republican Michael Huffington with his $28-million-plus for the California U.S. Senate race in 1994; and Republican Steve Forbes $30-million-plus for the Republican presidential primary in 1996.

And now, I hope Democrat Checchi will spend 10% to 15% of his personal wealth of $600 million on next year’s gubernatorial election. He will still have so much left to be really, I mean really, independent. Shining clean from political favors, he can start eradicating the graft and corruption that’s becoming so obvious in government.

As a lifetime registered nonpartisan, I’d rather have Alfred Checchi, whoever he is, buy the governorship than have special-interest groups, political action committees and lobbyists buy the governor.

SAM CASTELO

Irvine

Mark P. Petracca, local liberal at large, pops up once again to give us his less than brilliant insights on the political scene (Letters, Oct. 19).

In his present flailing-about effort he inadvertently gives us some insight into the liberal mind when he castigates Kenneth L. Khachigian for running political campaigns for “rich white men.” There in three words are the things that liberals such as Petracca hate: rich, white, men.

Now, Petracca is probably not rich, so we can probably understand, on some level, that part of the hatred. But how do we explain his sneering about “white” and “men,” since he’s both of these? How indeed, except by concluding that Petracca may suffer from that psychological aberration called self-hatred, that seems to afflict so many liberals.

There it is on the newspaper page for all to see: neurosis disguised as politics.

To curry favor with Petracca, on the outside chance that this is a desirable end, Khachigian may want to run a political campaign or two for poor black women. We can then expect Petracca to gush about what a wonderful person Khachigian is.

H. MILLARD

Costa Mesa