Golding, in Shadow of Husband’s Arrest, Curbs Campaign Plans

With her husband under indictment on money-laundering charges, San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding said Thursday that she will not seek statewide office next year so that she will have time to “lend emotional and moral support” to her family.

Noting that a statewide race is “emotionally draining and time-consuming under the best of circumstances,” Golding said the charges facing her husband, La Jolla businessman Richard T. Silberman, “make it obvious this is not the right time” to campaign for the 1990 Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

“I want to be able to divide my time and emotion between my job and my family,” Golding said. “Running a statewide race would require me to be away from San Diego more than I want to be over the next year. This is the time when I want to be there for my husband and my family.”

Golding’s decision came as no surprise in political circles. Since Silberman’s April 7 arrest on charges that he laundered $300,000 that he thought came from Colombian drug traffickers, most political observers have expected Golding to end her flirtation with next year’s campaign for lieutenant governor.

Many of those same political activists, however, argue that Silberman’s legal woes are not necessarily, as one consultant put it, “a terminal political disease for Golding.”

Emphasizing that point herself, the 43-year-old Golding said Thursday that she has not ruled out future races for other offices--statewide or local--or seeking reelection in 1992.