CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : Wilson Tries to Steer to Middle of Road With Positive Ad Campaign

Pete Wilson dramatically changed the tone of his television advertising Friday with the announcement that next week he will begin airing a positive commercial, a marketing approach nearly extinct this political season.

The commercial touts Wilson’s general plans for programs to help coming generations of Californians--more science teachers, early childhood education, prenatal health care--and does not mention Democrat Dianne Feinstein, with whom Wilson is engaged in a tight battle for the governorship.

“When we invest in our schools, when we invest in our children, we invest in our future,” the Republican senator tells voters.

The commercial will air across the state. On Monday, Wilson and Feinstein will quicken their campaigning pace with traditional Labor Day appearances that mark the beginning of the sprint to Election Day.

In the ad, Wilson talks with a schoolteacher, sits with students, walks through a computer lab and visits a neonatal nursery. Spliced into the mix are pictures of favorable newspaper accounts of Wilson proposals.

The commercial presents a broad outline of Wilson’s priorities, without delving into how much money he will commit to the programs he mentions or where he would get the funds.

The first Wilson commercial since June that does not seek to tar his Democratic adversary, it comes as the two candidates find themselves running dead even, according to a Los Angeles Times Poll released last week.

In contrast to earlier days, when Feinstein found high approval among women and Wilson among men, the race seems to have settled into a more partisan division, with Democrats favoring Feinstein and Republicans attracted to Wilson.

To win, either candidate will have to attract moderates of both parties, and the commercial underscores Wilson’s effort to set himself apart from the more socially conservative Republicans who have held past governorships.

As comparisons go, Wilson’s ad presents a candidate closer in feel to moderate George Bush than conservative Gov. George Deukmejian and his ideological soul mate, Ronald Reagan. Indeed, just as Bush campaigned as the “education President,” a press release issued by Wilson’s campaign Friday said he wishes to be the “education governor.”

On issues such as drug abuse, prenatal care, education and social welfare, Wilson tends to inhabit very moderate turf. There, he is meeting Feinstein, who is trying to one-up the senator with her own pleas for an increased emphasis on early childhood education and health care.

Each has proposed increasing the availability of preschool for 4-year-olds in the state, citing education experts who say that children who attend preschools are less likely to drop out and more likely to get a job after graduation.

Feinstein has pledged to restore $462 million in cuts to education slashed from the state budget by Deukmejian in this year’s dicey round of budget cutting. Wilson has yet to take a position on the specific programs cut by the governor, his press aide Bill Livingstone said.

Wilson has won considerable acclaim from educators by calling for the systematic integration of social welfare services into the state’s school system. The senator said that placement of mental health counselors and social workers in schools would help protect endangered children before their problems lead them to drop out.

While his commercial advocates an activist role--”What happens here in the classrooms of California is too important for the governor to be on the sidelines,” it says--Wilson has refused to attach specific financial sources for some of his programs, including the social integration plan.

For example, the commercial said Wilson advocates “more teachers from the fields of science, math and computers.” His campaign’s research director, Loren Kaye, said Wilson has not determined how to pay for that. The funding, Kaye said, hinges on whether Wilson opts to encourage corporations to loan employees to schools to serve as teachers--and assume the financial burden--or whether school districts would have to foot some or all of the bill.

The funding sources Wilson is considering are likely to provoke some argument from advocates of other cash-strapped programs. The senator has stipulated that his early childhood education program for the state’s 4-year-olds would be phased in with increments from Proposition 98, which provides money to education. Legislators and Deukmejian have had longstanding battles over how to spend that money, with each side opting for different programs.

Wilson also plans to finance a prenatal care program for women without medical coverage by taking money from the state’s tobacco tax. That money already goes to education and health programs that would need to be cut back if Wilson’s program skims off some of the money.

“It gives us an opportunity to put our priorities into the mix,” research director Kaye said.