Wilson Takes Shot at Crime as He Opens Governor Bid : Politics: The Republican U.S. senator officially tosses his hat in the ring. He has no GOP opposition for the nomination.

Former U.S. Marine, state legislator, mayor of San Diego, and now U.S. senator and great hope of the California Republican Party, Pete Wilson officially entered the race for governor Sunday, his third try.

The 56-year-old, still boyish-faced Wilson began a four-day barnstorm of California in San Diego, the town he calls home, and then headed north reciting from Chapter 1 of the time-worn GOP campaign playbook--the feverish politics of crime.

“I will not have California under siege to rapists and thugs and drug dealers!” Wilson told an audience of 200 outside the San Diego Police Officers’ Assn. headquarters.

He repeated the speech to about 300 people at a picnic at the Los Angeles Police Academy, to 250 people in Alameda and to 350 people at the Railroad Museum in Sacramento.

At each of the three stops, Wilson was greeted enthusiastically. In the only sign of dissent he encountered, 15 anti-abortion demonstrators picketed his Sacramento appearance because of Wilson’s support for a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion.

In the 1990 gubernatorial preliminaries, Wilson sketched an activist agenda of environmental protection, political independence and increased attention to social problems and progress. Buthose themes were left in the background at the formal campaign kickoff Sunday.

Wilson surrounded himself with police and prosecutors and focused single-mindedly on what he said was California’s No. 1 problem.

“It is a bitter irony that, despite our having perhaps the most pro-law enforcement governor in our history, in George Deukmejian, and the most skilled and dedicated law enforcement professionals to be found anywhere, California’s streets are needlessly dangerous.

“It is a misnomer to speak of a California criminal justice system. The people of California have lost confidence in the ability of that system to protect them. They are afraid--afraid in their homes and afraid to leave them.

“Well,” Wilson said, “that situation is intolerable and I mean to bring it to an end.”

Along with his speech, Wilson announced endorsements from a dozen law enforcement groups, representing rank-and-file officers and police chiefs, and from 300 prosecutors across the state. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

In subsequent days of his extended ritual “announcement” tour of the state, Wilson plans to broaden his pitch to include education and quality-of-life issues.

The senator is seeking to duplicate what George Bush accomplished at the national level last election--maintain Republican control of an office after an eight-year GOP Administration. Not in 30 years has one party held the governorship of California for more than two consecutive terms.

A Republican who can be described as a moderate on social issues and a conservative on economic matters and foreign policy, Wilson enters the GOP race in a happy and commanding position. He is the undisputed leader of his party, and has no substantive GOP challenge to his candidacy.

This is a source of deep satisfaction, given his two previous runs at the office. In 1978, the GOP Establishment gave him the cold shoulder and he finished fourth in a field of five in the Republican primary. Four years later, he set out again for the office but was persuaded by GOP elders to run for the U.S. Senate. He won the primary and was elected over Democrat Edmund G. Brown Jr., then the governor.

Wilson begins this campaign with substantial advantages. While he has a seemingly united party at his command, Democrats face a costly and potentially draining primary battle between Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. And Wilson has shown the capacity to raise twice as much money as either of the Democrats.

Still, Wilson’s early campaign is not without its skeptics.

Some doubt his gusto in looking forward and engaging California’s growing list of problems. His speeches Sunday were often vaguer than even typical political fare.

“California is besieged by big problems, there is no denying that. But no state is blessed with more ability to solve those problems--if we have the right leader,” Wilson said. “And guess who that is?”

As he spoke, his campaign was involved in a fund-raising drive that underscored Wilson’s apparent confidence in a strategy that looks back as much as forward. A solicitation letter mailed to about 60,000 Republicans did not mention his opponents but liberally fanned years-old hostilities toward Brown.

“None of the leading Democrat candidates for governor has criticized Jerry Brown for his mismanagement of California,” said the letter, signed by Wilson.

In some areas, Wilson has offered ideas for the new decade, such as a stronger educational effort to help young children and improved health care. But he has been reluctant to commit significant additional government financing.

On the subject of crime, however, Wilson was both specific and emphatic Sunday.

He touted his role as the chairman of a June ballot proposition to speed up criminal trials. This grass-roots initiative is the work of an active and vocal group of crime victims and their relatives.

“It is absurd that it took four years to bring the ‘Night Stalker’ to trial, that it requires two years on average to bring an alleged felon to trial in California,” Wilson said.

He went further, even at the risk of over-promising. A drug-free California, for instance. “I promise you we will succeed in this.”

Later, aboard his twin-engine propeller campaign charter that lumbered through the skies of Central California, Wilson was asked if his kind of pledge was realistic. “I think you have to aim high,” he replied.

One way to counter drugs, Wilson continued, is drug testing of first-time recipients of driver’s licenses. He proposed that young drivers face such tests randomly for a year after receiving their license.

Leaders of the crime victims movement and assorted law enforcement supporters joined the Wilson entourage on Sunday’s campaign swing. Also along was Wilson’s wife, Gayle, an enthusiastic campaigner; her two sons from a previous marriage, Todd and Phillip Graham; and no fewer than eight campaign assistants.

It was obvious to everyone that Wilson’s third campaign for governor was vastly different from his earlier tries.

“Based on some experience and successes, you get to feeling more confidence,” Wilson said in an informal chat with reporters. “Ever since people asked us to consider running this time, it’s been remarkable.”

Times political writer Ronald Brownstein contributed to this story.