Candidates Launch Fall Campaign for Governor : Wilson: He pushes crime and fear of victimization, especially for women, as principalissues.

Emphasizing issues that propelled two successive generations of Republicans to thegovernorship, Pete Wilson opened his general election campaign Monday with a hard-line appealon the bellwether concern of crime.

In front of a bandstand on a placid Labor Day here, Wilson aimed repeated jabs at Democraticopponent, Dianne Feinstein and a “handful of arrogant liberals” he said had created a climate where crime could proliferate.

Surrounded by correctional officers, Wilson directed comments specifically at Feinstein and her political ally, Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco.

“We are sick of excuses. We will not accept them,” he said. “We cannot have a California,in which we call ourselves a civilized state, where women fear the night.”

The Republican senator, here and in an earlier appearance in Orange County, vowed to enforce the death penalty and rid Californians of what he suggested was a pervasive fear of victimization.

“You have a fundamental right, as does every Californian, not to be a crime victim,” Wilson told about 150 sheriffs’ deputies and their families at a Labor Day picnic in Fountain Valley.

“This state will not be under siege to rapists or thugs or sellers of crack cocaine,” he added in Folsom, before several hundred picnickers who had gathered at a park near the state prison.

While he sounded harsh rhetoric on crime and punishment, Wilson offered no firm solutions for the state’s pressing fiscal problems.

Answering questions from reporters in Fountain Valley, he flatly ruled out an increase in the state’s income tax to deal with future budget deficits. But he left the door distinctly open to raising revenues in other ways.

“I cannot responsibly say that I will not impose new taxes,” Wilson said. “I do not like the idea of taxing earnings. . . . I do not wish to increase that. That’s one that I would rule out.”

Later, in Folsom, he said that state budget-cutting imperatives included rethinking the amount of money that goes to education via Proposition 98.

“Education is a priority,” said Wilson, whose current campaign commercial urges a greater investment in schools and children. “But I don’t think that means you can ignore all other requests.”

Addressing the state’s financial prospects, Wilson said that “there is a built-in deficit awaiting the next governor.”

The senator’s emphasis on conservative positions on crime and income taxes--issues that helped fuel the campaigns of Republican Govs. George Deukmejian and Ronald Reagan--came as a counterpoint to his television ads, which accent his moderate positions on education and social services.

But Wilson’s official kick-off to the general election campaign was absent any sort of overarching, thematic explanation of where he would like to take the state of California.

There were, however, customary campaign touches: Wilson backed by dozens of deputies and correctional officers at the two picnic sites, accepting gifts of jackets and an honorary membership in the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

The Fountain Valley picnic, sponsored by the local deputies’ association, was held at Mile Square Park, where Reagan launched his presidential election drive on Labor Day in 1984.

In Folsom, Wilson was even goaded into trying on an Indian war bonnet, which he modeled for the cameras. The war bonnet came in handy given the day’s tone. Negative references to Feinstein escalated as the day wore on.

Seeking to blunt the impact of her conservative positions on crime--which are quite similar to his--Wilson invoked Speaker Brown’s name repeatedly, and also revived the images of Rose Elizabeth Bird, former state Supreme Court chief justice, who was turned out by voters in 1986, and the man who appointed Bird--former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

In both Fountain Valley and Folsom, Wilson chided Feinstein as a campaign-year convert on crime issues, accusing her of wanting to take a ‘ride-along’ with police.

In his later appearance in Northern California, he also forcefully pronounced his support for Proposition 139, the November initiative that would compel state prisoners to work.

Until Monday, Feinstein had not publicly declared a position on the initiative. But Monday she announced that she supports it.

Wilson appeared to direct much of his anti-crime message to women. Repeatedly, he brought up the crime of rape as one that has enshrouded women in fear.

“We need to see to it that women need not fear to walk from the job to their car in the parking lot,” he said at one point.

Wilson has made concerted efforts this campaign year to court women, fearful that Feinstein might skim off the votes of moderate Republican women in particular.

But his campaign director, Otto Bos, denied that Wilson had aimed his anti-crime message specifically toward women. “It’s a crime message for both men and women,” Bos said.

The senator’s appearance in Fountain Valley was interrupted briefly by protesters who shouted their request that Wilson sign a pledge not to spray malathion in the event of future infestations of the Medfly.

He refused, but said that he supported spending more money on research into alternative solutions.