Tapping a Voter Anger That Now Is Just a Memory

Elect Al Checchi governor and you’ll get massive change in state government, the candidate promises.

Dramatic change. He’s an agent of change.

“If you think state government’s broke and want to fix it, then vote for Al Checchi,” proclaims Darry Sragow, the airline tycoon’s chief strategist. “Al’s spent his entire life changing institutions. But if you’re happy with how things have been going, then Al’s not your candidate. Vote for one of the career politicians.”

In truth, that’s probably the only strategy available to Checchi. Since he never has served in government--never even run for office--he must attack career politicians.

A look at the polls, however, makes one wonder if this isn’t like the proverbial general fighting the last war--as if Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II had promised to build the deepest, widest trenches across France.

The voters’ mood this spring seems to be somewhere between contentment and apathy.

“This is not 1994, when elections were determined by angry voters,” says Mark Baldassare, pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. “There is not a throw-the-bums-out mood about California government.

“That’s good for [Republican Atty. Gen.] Dan Lungren. You’d have to say it also helps [Democratic Lt. Gov.] Gray Davis. It helps counterbalance the suspicion people have about career politicians.”

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Says Davis: “Check the polls. Things are totally different. People are not looking for radical change, and I don’t propose to bring it.”

A recent Times poll found that a plurality of registered voters even approves of the Legislature’s job performance. Six months earlier, attitudes were reversed. And two years ago, the Legislature was downright unpopular (30% approval, 52% disapproval).

Baldassare’s most recent poll found that 62% of Californians now have a “fair amount of trust and confidence” in the Legislature and 53% feel similarly satisfied with outgoing Gov. Pete Wilson. “Californians tend to be less politically alienated than their fellow Americans,” the pollster reported.

And the main reason, of course, is California’s comeback.

California created nearly 500,000 new jobs in 1997, according to the state Department of Finance. This March alone, 34,500 jobs were added while the entire nation was losing 36,000. Compared to the rest of the country, California’s income growth was higher last year and its inflation lower. This March, California housing sales reached the highest level since 1989.

Most telling, Baldassare believes, consumer confidence is up. In 1994, only 32% of Californians expected to be better off financially the next year; now 44% do. “This suggests to me that people are not looking for big change,” he says. “It’s very hard for them to get excited about shaking up the status quo. . . .

“They’re looking for modest reforms. Even on the hot button issue of education, we don’t see a great deal of dissatisfaction.”

In his survey, 44% of Californians graded public schools “excellent or good;” only 15% rated them poor. Moreover, 54% of parents whose children attend public schools graded them excellent or good.

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One of Checchi’s massive changes would be to raise California’s per-pupil spending level from 37th in the nation to the national average. That would cost $5 billion-plus. He’d do it over five years, he contends, without a tax increase. He’d bank on the boom continuing and also save money by cutting the state bureaucracy 10%.

The latter’s a laugher, critics say. For starters, California already ranks dead last in state employees per capita. Also, the political reality is that labor unions would not sit still for a Democratic-controlled government--Legislature and governor--slashing the civil service work force. They have more legal weapons than the private sector employees Checchi is used to coercing.

“The state can eliminate jobs, but not necessarily people,” says Victoria Bradshaw, Wilson’s chief labor advisor. “There are ‘bumping’ rights.”

Sragow dismisses these naysayers as “career politicians getting lost counting angels on the head of a pin.”

But a lot of good things are happening to appease voters: Student SAT scores have risen to the national average, dropout rates are falling, K-3 class sizes are significantly smaller. . . . California’s violent crime rate has dropped 27% since 1994. . . . The state treasury is overflowing. . . .

Lakes are brimming, the wildflowers are stunning, you can get to Big Sur again. . . . This isn’t the best market for selling massive change--especially by someone who’s never had any experience handling what he wants to change.