CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : Wilson in Shadows as Democrats Slug It Out

Pete Wilson travels through the sweet rural towns and congested urban monstrosities of California as effortlessly as a torpedo slices through calm waters. Traveling north and south with precision, the expected Republican nominee for governor glides across territory made familiar by his successful bids for U.S. Senate: Pasadena to Marysville, Costa Mesa to El Cajon.

But with attentions riveted for now on the down-to-the-wire Democratic contest between Dianne Feinstein and John K. Van de Kamp, Pete Wilson has been relegated to the shadows. Earlier this week, he finally got some notice--but he had to harshly criticize the real news makers, Feinstein and Van de Kamp--to get it.

Wilson, shaking hands with a few Republican loyalists in a Northern California park the other day, professed not to be bothered.

“Plenty of time for that,” Wilson says about public attention, adding a wry observation about the Democratic race: “There’s some attention you’d rather not have.”

But tellingly, Wilson felt compelled to send biographical commercials onto the airwaves two weeks ago to remind voters who he is--and that he is running. An aide said later that the campaign could not afford not to issue the reminder.

It is the stuff of a politician’s dreams and nightmares, to be left unblemished by the mayhem of a primary yet to be denied the free publicity that has come Feinstein’s and Van de Kamp’s way.

There are no illusions that Wilson, 56, will stay quiet for long. A campaign operative for an opponent physically shudders at the bombardment Wilson is expected to loose against the winning Democrat the day after the election.

“Hiroshima,” he said, describing the expected blast in nuclear terms.

But for now, Wilson has bounded about freely, raising money to add to the $3 million he has on hand and--when time and events permit--making occasional stabs at his rivals. In the process the senator has sought to press anew the image he crafted during the last eight years in Washington, that of a pragmatic and moderate Republican unfettered by the more hard-line positions espoused by others in his party.

Standing Tuesday in front of an El Cajon home that houses drug-addicted mothers and their children, Wilson sounded more like a Democratic outsider than a man who has spent years climbing the Republican political ladder. The federal government--controlled for the last 10 years by Republican administrations--has done an “abysmal” job of preventing drug abuse, he said. He added that federal health projects involving pregnant addicts had been “minor league” in their funding.

“These women need help,” he said. “What we should have done in the first place as a society is to prevent their becoming addicted. Having failed to do that, the next step is to prevent them from having another addicted newborn.”

Wilson was touting a $300-million proposal he has authored to increase treatment facilities for pregnant drug abusers, teach doctors and nurses how to spot addicted babies, and increase foster care placements for babies born addicted.

The appearance was technically billed as a senatorial press conference--not one paid for by his campaign for governor--but it was illustrative of the techniques he will use in the fall.

Talking to young and apprehensive mothers, days and weeks into drug abuse recovery, he listened almost awkwardly as they told their stories. He asked few questions, and seemed to connect more personally with the babies than with their mothers.

“She won’t do anything at all for a while besides sleep,” he chuckled nervously to a mother who apologized that her 5-day-old daughter slept through Wilson’s visit.

Minutes later, when the television camera rolled, Wilson repeated the mothers’ stories almost word for word--personalizing a pitch that could have glazed the eyes had it dwelt on abuse statistics and federally funded training programs.

But Wilson admitted that the money he was proposing was minuscule compared to the demand for treatment programs.

“Realistically, I don’t think I could get more,” he said.

Not all events run so smoothly or draw the television and radio coverage of the El Cajon appearance. On Sunday in Marysville, Wilson drove up to a Republican Party picnic to find a dozen adults and two little girls in party finery eating chicken and macaroni salad.

An hour before he arrived, with the size of the crowd even smaller, two of the picnickers grabbed the microphone and speakers set up for Wilson’s speech and bundled them into a car. Wilson ultimately shook hands with the attendees and left without making any formal remarks.

The anonymity disappeared the next morning, when Wilson slammed Feinstein--and to a lesser extent Van de Kamp--in a speech to the California Peace Officers Assn. in Costa Mesa.

Responding to Feinstein advertisements in which she is billed as the “only Democratic candidate for governor who is for the death penalty,” Wilson accused her of being a campaign convert to the cause.

“What I am saying is that if this (Feinstein’s death penalty posture) has been a long-held passion, it has been well-concealed,” Wilson declared.

“I’m rather surprised by the senator’s hyperbole,” Feinstein snapped back. “I think he must be getting a little frightened.”

Recent polls, including a state survey conducted by The Times, show Wilson in a virtual dead heat with either Feinstein or Van de Kamp. Political experts have long suggested that the senator might have a tougher time beating back a challenge by Feinstein, whose positions are closer to Wilson’s than are Van de Kamp’s.

Wilson’s current campaign commercial covers essentially the same themes that the two Democrats have battled over in their primary--the environment, growth, the death penalty, education.

“The purpose is to remind people of the visionary leadership we think Wilson has demonstrated over 24 years of public life,” said campaign director Otto Bos.

Bos denies that campaign officials are concerned about Wilson’s relatively low profile throughout the primary campaign. Rather, they say the ads are necessary because Californians need to be reminded of the candidate’s positions.

“When you’re living in a state of 30 million people, you’re obliged to tell it again and again,” he said.

Wilson plans to return to Washington for two weeks during the close of the primary campaign, when attention will be drawn to two Democratic debates and the last-ditch exchanges between Feinstein and Van de Kamp. Then he will be back in California with what is expected to be a fierce assault on the winner.

“Until the primary is over, we’re still a third force,” said Bos. “Their jig is up in four weeks.”