Wilson Refuses to Take Run for ’88 Reelection in Stride

As Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson prepares for his 1988 reelection battle, what he sees on paper makes him smile: $2 million already in the campaign kitty, top consultants and fund-raisers signed up, and a first-term record of hard work and careful votes.

But a couple of recent polls showing a degree of voter indifference toward him--and the jinxed seat he holds--have him acting like an underdog.

He is present for nearly every vote in the Senate, raises money in Washington one night and New York the next, and spends hectic stretches in California giving speeches and listening to gripes.

During the recent Easter break, Wilson would often rise at 5:30 a.m. in Northern California and switch off his bedside lamp 16 hours later in San Diego. Nothing was impossible for his schedulers. When he had to get from one important meeting in West Hollywood to another in Orange County, a police helicopter whisked him right over the rush-hour gridlock on the San Diego Freeway.

Some of his stops were a little uncomfortable.

One afternoon, Wilson toured a former public hospital in San Francisco now used by the Army. A mini-platoon of Army brass told Wilson how important the facility has become to them.

Minutes later Mayor Dianne Feinstein pulled the senator into another corner and explained it was vital that the building be turned into an AIDS treatment center.

Wilson is a former Marine and current member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Army officers were expecting him to come through for them. The senator finally took a deep breath and informed them that their concerns were secondary to those of the AIDS-scarred city.

One officer fumed within Wilson’s earshot, “He didn’t hear a damn thing we said.”

Another day, at a public event in Southern California, Wilson had to stand there and take it as a furious Reaganite blasted him for not sustaining President Reagan’s veto of the highway bill.

Wilson had his tight smile ready for that one because an aide had just informed him that his office was being deluged with abusive mail.

He finally fired back, “California road projects need the money, and you didn’t send me back there to be a rubber stamp.”

But it is not always so grim. Some audiences sit down in front of Wilson expecting to fight to stay awake as he talks about budgets. Instead, he delights them by poking fun at government bureaucrats with a joke about a rancher who is losing all his sheep to coyotes.

“One day, as this rancher is about to shoot a coyote,” Wilson recounts, “a fellow comes up and says, ‘Put down that gun. I’m from Sacramento, and I’m here to help you.’ ”

Then, a dirty grin breaking across his boyish face, Wilson continues: “Instead of shooting the coyotes, the bureaucrat from Sacramento says, ‘We will enter their lair and spray them with a chemical that makes them impotent.’

“And the rancher looks at the bureaucrat and says, ‘Mister, I don’t know what the coyotes do up in Sacramento, but around here they eat the sheep.’ ”

But the jokes aside, Wilson is deadly serious about keeping his job. The 53-year-old former San Diego mayor is leaving nothing to chance--not because he is jinxed but because the seat he holds is.

Not since 1952 has anyone been reelected in Wilson’s slot, and there is no predicting what the fickle electorate will do. Occupants have included a song-and-dance man (George Murphy) and a guy in a tam-o’shanter (S. I. Hayakawa) who fell asleep in meetings.

Even though communications director Otto Bos got a political education money cannot buy when the Wilson team whipped former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. by seven percentage points in 1982, Wilson recently sent Bos to a campaign school in Washington to knock off the rust.

Wilson has also gotten commitments from San Clemente lawyer Kenneth Khachigian, the favorite speech writer of President Reagan and Gov. George Deukmejian, and from Reagan’s political consultant, Stuart K. Spencer of Newport Beach. George Gorton, the San Diego consultant who managed Wilson’s win in 1982, will also have a role in the reelection effort.

Another $10 Million Sought

And though the senator already has $2 million in his campaign coffers--an amount that wins Senate elections in many states--he wants another $10 million by November of next year. So he signed up Joyce Valdez of Los Angeles, one of the best fund-raisers in the country, and told her he wants to have $7 million raised before the Democrats even choose his opponent in June, 1988, primary.

Secretary of State March Fong Eu has already announced that she wants to face Wilson, and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy is expected to declare his candidacy Wednesday. Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) is thinking about it.

Business and agricultural constituents get much of Wilson’s attention in the Senate, and they will provide the bulk of his campaign funds. But Wilson, a consistent supporter of Israel, is also courting Jewish contributors who provide substantial funding for Democratic candidates.

“You might say we’re doing a bit of poaching,” Bos said.

And then there is the political profile Wilson has carefully crafted since he went to the Senate, a profile that his aides believe will make him invincible in 1988. Briefly, it looks like this:

Wilson has been a solid vote for Reagan on defense and foreign policy issues, in particular aid for the Nicaraguan contras and support for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.”

That is expected to take care of his right flank--the Reaganites who wield power in the California Republican Party by writing big checks and providing the energy for get-out-the-vote efforts.

“I don’t think Pete will have any problems with conservatives,” Thomas Fuentes, chairman of the Orange County California Republican Party, said the other day. “Some of us were disappointed when he didn’t back the President on the highway bill, but overall he has a very distinguished record, and he is especially good on military and fiscal matters.”

That should preclude serious opposition in the Republican primary, leaving Wilson free to go after the votes of moderate Democrats and independents who often determine elections in California.

Wilson knows how to play to moderates.

Pro-Choice on Abortion

He is pro-choice on abortion; he has taken a leadership role in the AIDS crisis, pushing Reagan to create a national task force, and he has been praised by environmentalists for opposing new offshore oil drilling and for helping fashion the 1984 California Wilderness Act, which protected the Tuolumne River and added 1.7 million acres to the national parks.

“Pete is lucky he’s from an environmental county like San Diego,” said Mervin Field, director of the California Poll. “It has sensitized him to the environment issue.”

Said Bos, who is expected to run Wilson’s campaign: “I think it’s clear by now that we listen even if we don’t always agree with some folks on every detail. We are broadening the base.”

Because of the money and professional advice he is expected to have, as well as the record he can run on, Wilson looks formidable to many Democratic consultants.

But they also point to two recent statewide polls that give them hope for defeating him. Both the California Poll and a survey by Teichner Associates found that though Wilson’s job-approval rating was high, one-third of the electorate did not know enough about him to give an opinion.

“That’s his problem,” said Democratic political consultant Clinton Reilly of San Francisco. “The fact that so many voters cannot rate the job he is doing makes him very vulnerable to an opponent who is able to define him before he can define himself.”

Harvey Englander, a Democratic consultant in Orange County, said: “Pete Wilson may have the best record in the world for all I know, but that isn’t enough in California. This is a media state. You have to have the hype, too. (Democratic U.S. Sen.) Alan Cranston is also a workaholic, but he gets a lot of attention by running in track meets and camping out in the desert. Wilson needs some drama.”

“You never know,” Reilly added. “We could have a big movement away from the Republicans in 1988, and Wilson could just get swept away by it.”

Which is why, Bos said, Pete Wilson will go on acting like an underdog.