PETE? OR DIANNE? : A Range of Voices Argues that California Does Have a Choice : Wilson: A Curb to Politics as Usual

The story of the 1990 governor’s race is a tale of two cities, and of two very different visions of California’s future.

As mayor of San Diego, Pete Wilson spent 11 years building a city with a quality of life that is even today the envy of people throughout America. San Diego is the quintessential California dream, combining scenic beauty with a healthy economy, good schools, safe roads, affordable housing and clean water.

Dianne Feinstein, twice defeated badly for San Francisco mayor, inherited the job after the murder of then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. She retained most of Moscone’s staff and let San Francisco political boss Willie Brown take over her election campaign a year later. The next year, Brown again mobilized his forces to help her escape a recall challenge.

Backed by Assembly Speaker Brown’s machine, Feinstein ran San Francisco for nine years, collapsing a $152-million surplus that developed early in her tenure into a $172-million budget shortfall, the largest in the city’s history. San Francisco’s urban problems, from drugs to AIDS to street crime to taxes, may be no different from New York’s or Chicago’s; and San Francisco will always retain its tourist charm. But most Californians would rather raise their families in a place like San Diego. To them, Pete Wilson’s shining city by the bay looks much different and much better.

Pete Wilson’s vision for San Diego is now his vision for California. To realize that vision, however, Wilson will have to bring radical change to a State Assembly dominated by Willie Brown, who has now spent more than a quarter of a century in office. Whether on taxes and spending, merit pay for teachers, educational choice, fighting drugs and crime, hiring quotas or campaign reform, Willie Brown will be Pete Wilson’s enemy--just as he was George Deukmejian’s.

But Brown, who made and kept Feinstein as mayor of San Francisco, is very much her friend. It’s no accident that Feinstein, the alleged candidate of “change,” opposes the Wilson-endorsed term-limitation initiative on the November ballot. So Brown, set for yet another decade as Speaker (and perhaps, if Feinstein wins, as vice-governor), has raised millions of dollars to defeat term limits.

As mayor, Pete Wilson saw first-hand how local law enforcement had been hamstrung by liberal-left judges who gutted California’s criminal law. Later, he joined forces with Californians who worked hard to get rid of Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other Jerry Brown-appointed justices who favored criminal defendants and civil plaintiffs. But Dianne Feinstein isn’t likely to be a force for that kind of change; despite her tough talk, she would likely bring back more of the same liberal, activist judges.

That scenario is less vision than nightmare for millions of Californians. With good reason, they’re looking forward to ending the holidays for criminals, the last-minute budget fiascos, the red ink, the bloated government spending, and the hyper-regulation that has come from too many desensitized politicians too long in office. That is why their term-limitation initiative will win, and that is why Pete Wilson will be California’s next governor.