NEWS ANALYSIS : Wilson’s White House Path Travels via State Capitol : Politics: Insiders agree that the governor’s handling of the budget deficit is a key to his presidential prospects.

The one thing virtually everybody can agree on these days at the State Capitol, outside the governor’s office, is that Pete Wilson wants to run for President in five years.

The reasoning is simple and familiar:

The governor--indeed, most any governor--is politically ambitious. President Bush, assuming he is reelected next year, will be vacating the White House after 1996. This state holds one-fifth of the electoral votes needed to choose a President. Historically, a sitting or former California governor has run for President in four of the last six elections. In fact, there has been a Californian on a national ticket in eight of the last 11 races.

“If Wilson does a good job as governor, he’ll have a tough time beating back people who want him to run,” says political consultant Sal Russo, a first-term adviser to former Gov. George Deukmejian. “As a California governor, you really have to not want to run, to not run.”

Deukmejian was a rarity: He wanted to serve two terms as governor and go back to Long Beach.

So far, Wilson has shunned serious talk--publicly and privately--about presidential aspirations. He recently has shied away from reacting to increased media speculation about his long-term presidential prospects. Nevertheless, he already has shown by words and actions that he intends to be a participant in the national political arena.

But because nobody can see clearly what lies five years down a political road, the more relevant question is what this prospective presidential candidacy means to the business at hand--namely, reaching agreement on a state budget and closing a constantly widening revenue gap, now up to $14.3 billion.

The assumption of most legislative leaders has been that the new Republican governor will be easier to deal with than his predecessor because, among other reasons, he will be eager to build a solid record of accomplishment on which to run for President.

“As long as I’ve known him . . . he’s always had an ambition to move forward (politically),” said Senate Republican leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. “A great deal of what he has done has been structured not only to (public) service but also to look very good. . . . In the long run, it will generally help (legislators). They will find that he is going to want to chalk up real achievements.

“And that will benefit all of us. This place needs some achievements. We’ve been locked in combat for too long.”

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) agreed with that scenario until recently. “We’re counting on that,” he told The Times last month. But lately Brown has changed his tune. He now says Wilson’s political ambitions hinder his dealings with legislators.

Brown’s thesis is a bit complicated, but basically it is this: Wilson is catering to the Republican National Committee’s desire to increase the number of GOP congressional seats in California through the upcoming redistricting. In doing so, he is ignoring Republican legislators whose primary goal is to carve out districts for themselves, either congressional or legislative. Therefore they are less motivated to vote for the governor’s spending and tax proposals, or anything else he wants.

“What moves (GOP legislators’) votes is whether or not (they) have a seat,” Brown told The Times. “The Republican National Committee doesn’t care whether (they) have a seat. It just wants an ‘R’ by a name.”

Wilson, indeed, has vowed unequivocally to veto any redistricting plan tailor-made for incumbents. He is insisting on “a fair reapportionment” that opens up districts to increased competition and thus, he believes, better opportunities for more GOP candidates.

“That’s just Willie putting a bad spin on things,” said Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale). “He took Wilson’s early words of conciliation to mean he’d be a pushover. Now he’s discovered the guy’s a fighter. Pete will go around, over the top, underneath you. He’s a Marine. He’s going to take the hill once he decides to do it.”

But as with any ambitious Marine officer, Wilson has to be careful not to mess up. Therefore most Democrats believe they have some leverage over him, particularly with the budget deficit.

“He does want to establish a progressive record of achievement, but right now I think he just doesn’t want to be blamed for ‘that situation in California,’ ” said Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles). “That’s about all a person in another state could comprehend, ‘that situation in California,’ whether it’s good or it’s bad. He has to deal with that in order to be a viable candidate for President. And to do that he has to work with us.”

He also will have to deal with the challenge posed by the conservative Republicans in the Legislature who are adamantly opposed to any tax increase.

Roberti continued: “His record has to be, at a minimum, disaster-free politically. So that would compel him to be more compromising. On the other hand, I’m sure he’s the first to know that you can’t win a national Republican nomination without doffing your hat to the right wing to some degree. So it’s not all blue sky for us.”

Where does this leave Democrats? “Probably on balance it’s a positive,” Roberti said. “Because chaotic situations redound to everybody’s disadvantage. There are no winners in lack of settlement.”

Wilson’s presidential aspirations and prospects--and their effect on the Legislature--have been increasingly pondered at the State Capitol since President Bush’s hospitalization on May 4 for an irregular heartbeat, a condition found to be caused by a treatable thyroid ailment. As national polls highlighted the voters’ low esteem for Vice President Dan Quayle and speculation grew about whether Bush might dump him from the 1992 ticket, pundits quickly placed Wilson on the theoretical list of new veeps.

“I’m not interested in running for vice president,” Wilson replied.

Wilson has not elaborated, but some reasons are self-evident: He would be faced with the prospect of turning over the governor’s office to a Democrat, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy. He would have served only two years as governor, probably not enough time to have done much more than raise taxes, cut money for schools and welfare and preside over a drought. He would be totally at the mercy of Bush. And he would become a gag line for Johnny Carson. But if Wilson were to win reelection in 1994, he could run for President midway through his second term. Although he always has considered being governor “a career topper,” he told The Times just before taking office, “it doesn’t mean that I am indifferent to making changes.” He also remarked, “I live a credo: Do a good job and maybe the future will take care of itself.”

Wilson, whose seven-day work schedule is heavy with speeches and media events, clearly is on a course to be in position for a presidential run in five years. The 57-year-old governor is appealing to moderates and even some liberals with his pro-environment, abortion rights and “preventive government” stands. Meanwhile, he is a tough conservative on crime and national defense. He is tight with a dollar but not afraid to raise taxes. Unlike many conservatives, he believes in using government to solve problems.

His media advisers are trying to coin a new term for all this: “A Wilson Republican.”

Is this the wave of the political future? “Who knows!” replied his communications director, Otto Bos. “But California does often set the trend for the nation.”

William Schneider, a political analyst for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said that if California’s presidential primary is advanced from June to March--and the Legislature seems headed in that direction--”it would immediately make Wilson a major player for 1996, no question about it, whether he wanted to be or not.” California Republicans presumably would vote lopsidedly for their governor, if he were on the ballot, and hand him a massive number of delegates early in the nominating process.

“Wilson is taken very seriously,” Schneider said. “The governor of California has to be. You also can’t be elected statewide three times in a decade, beating formidable candidates (as Wilson has), without people taking notice.”

Political consultant Stuart K. Spencer, who helped put Ronald Reagan in the governor’s mansion and later the White House and is a longtime Wilson friend, said of the new governor’s presidential prospects: “The answer is simple. He has to be a good governor. Anytime you’re governor of California you’re going to be a national player. But you’ve got to be good at what you’re doing. The biggest thing you can carry into a national arena from a state is success.”

Success or failure largely could be determined soon, according to former Deukmejian chief of staff Steven A. Merksamer. “This is the defining year,” he said.

“To the extent Pete Wilson comes out of this budget crisis with his leadership enhanced, he enhances his reelection chances and his viability as a national figure. To the extent this doesn’t happen, his ability to win reelection and emerge as a national figure are diminished. And don’t think the Democrats don’t know that. It would be naive and unrealistic to think it won’t be a factor. There’s too much at stake.”

Political consultant Russo assessed it another way. “It’s a big help in dealing with the Legislature to be a potential presidential candidate,” he said. “It increases your stature; you look taller. And if they think they’re going to have to be dealing with you on the political stage for the next 10 or 15 years, they’re going to think twice before taking a cheap shot.”