Personality Is the Milk of Politics : California: Ego and ambition, rather than taxes and cutbacks, will more likely shape resolution of the state budget crisis, so don’t expect much.

Early in his term as President, John F. Kennedy found his legislative goals stymied by congressional conservatives. “When I was a congressman,” he complained, “I never realized how important Congress was. But now I do.”

Gov. Pete Wilson may be harboring similar thoughts about the state Legislature.

Like Kennedy, Wilson is learning that the interplay of attitudes and ambitions--his own and those of legislators--will affect his ability to lead. This, in turn, will determine how the governor emerges from the budget morass. And how he handles the budget will influence the fate of his administration.

In other words, personality influences politics.

Self-evident as this proposition might seem, it has been largely ignored in the continuing budget trauma. But it can tell us as much about the pickle we’re in and how we got there as all the words ever written about numbers, strategies and political alliances. Explaining the link won’t solve the problems, but it can help Californians understand why solutions are so hard to come by.

Even if the June skies rained down money into the Capitol rotunda, it will still be the personalities, egos and political ambitions of fallible human beings that determine the outcome of California’s budget woes. With not much of a voter mandate, Wilson faces the difficult task of winning over Democratic votes and holding enough of his own Republicans to give his proposals a legislative majority.

Defeat could mark Wilson as a weak governor, unable to achieve his most basic--and important--goals. Victory could signal the affirmation of real political power--the kind that would give Wilson control over the state’s fiscal agenda and, therefore, its policy direction.

Despite his recent rhetoric, Wilson’s style indicates that he might be more willing to try to negotiate a settlement with legislators than was George Deukmejian. Deukmejian’s inflexibility may have sabotaged not only his own budget, but also any hope for an easy settlement this year.

Deukmejian allowed the conservative Republicans in the Legislature, particularly the Assembly GOP caucus, to develop considerable clout. As their ideological soul-mate, with no taste for legislative tumble, Deukmejian was inclined to give the GOP caucuses free rein on policy matters, or to back off from any attempt at moderation when they bellowed their “no new taxes” chant. Now, Republican hard-liners are a major obstacle to meaningful (read: palatable to moderate and liberal legislators) budget compromise.

Even if Wilson agrees with Democrats on a Solomon-like compromise on sales and income taxes, can he get the Republican votes he’ll need to spring his budget from the lower house? What will Wilson have to give up to get them? His response to the Democrats’ latest budget plan signals a shift closer to the conservatives’ demand for more spending cuts. But it’s still an open question whether the personalities, mind-sets and independent attitudes in the Assembly will hamstring Wilson’s ability to negotiate--now or later.

Which brings us back to the link between political ambitions and policy outcomes.

There is a debate in Sacramento over whether Wilson’s presidential ambitions are helping or hindering the budget process. Hardly anybody believes his staff’s protestations that the governor harbors no such ambition.

Political ambition certainly can motivate policy-making.

Historically, state political leaders who have tried to move a policy agenda have been those eyeing higher office, because they needed a record of accomplishments on which to run. On his way to the White House, Gov. Ronald Reagan had to leave a score card of fiscal responsibility, which drove both his “cut, squeeze and trim” attitude and a monumental, out-of-character tax increase. Jerry Brown, when secretary of state, fashioned an agenda of political reform on which to run for governor.

Wilson will need to show he’s able to handle California’s problems before he can mount a credible national campaign. A budget solution is central to that.

Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown leads the chorus of those who insist that negotiations with this governor have been “far more complicated” than dealing with Deukmejian, because Wilson weighs everything against a presidential run. Deukmejian was inflexible, the argument goes, but he was driven only by a few strong, ideological convictions. He wasted little time on political considerations. That meant legislators could usually get a firm--and quick--Yes or No (mostly no) to their proposals.

But, insisted one Democrat, “it’s hard to get finality out of” Wilson. He seems slow to strike a bargain with the Legislature without first calculating its impact on his political future. Deukmejian, unlike Wilson, seldom bargained at all.

Could that be why Brown has been so critical of the new governor’s style? It was Brown who stepped into the negotiating vacuum left by Deukmejian. The Speaker prided himself on his role as “an honest broker” in the legislative process. It was Brown who cut the deals.

Now we have a governor who has filled that vacuum. What’s left for Brown to broker? Wilson deals for himself and, consequently, Brown’s control over the bargaining process has eroded. This cannot make Brown happy--or any more willing to accommodate Wilson on the budget.

As Brown’s role as broker has been undercut, he has become more strident in his opposition to Wilson.

Has Brown assumed a new role, providing, along with conservative Republicans, the “Deukmejian factor” in the budget debate--standing rigid and refusing to compromise?

What will Wilson do to accommodate the Speaker--or to trump him?

The new equation has allowed the state Senate, and its less strident leaders, to step in as a mediating force in the budget process. Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Brown share the same liberal constituencies. Like Brown, Roberti can be expected to be a strong opponent of program cuts and taxes that burden the poor and minorities.

But Roberti’s attitude and tone are more conciliatory--or perhaps more realistic. Roberti can communicate with his Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Ken Maddy, and Maddy’s GOP caucus. Both men have the luxury of providing a voice of moderation that the level of vitriol in the Assembly does not allow its leaders.

As partisan as the Senate has become, it is still less polarized than the Assembly. And that could make negotiations with the governor less rocky.

In the end, when pressures mount and the political boiling point is reached, there will be a resolution to this year’s budget crisis.

But the solution will not be perfect, because human beings are a part of the equation. Not recognizing this immutable limitation can only increase voters’ cynicism with government and its leaders.

Before leaders can cope with the crises of government, they have to reach beyond their own character, ambitions and rivalries to protect the public good. Unfortunately, in the short term that may mean causing some pain to themselves or their supporters.

Politicians won’t risk that until they’re pushed by a public consensus that demands that it be done. In our hyper-charged, polarized, cynical, self-centered society, that consensus is as difficult to come by as a quick $13 billion.