Compassionate Conservative, Thy Name Is Expediency

Dear Gov. Wilson:

I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think I was one of those voters you were trying to attract when you ran for governor last year. I’d never voted for a Republican for a major office in my 20-year voting life, but you made the appeal to Democratic voters (I’m a registered independent), and I was willing to listen.

I didn’t vote for you, but I didn’t close the book on you either. When you talked about prenatal care and the environment and early childhood education, I liked the sound of it. When you said you supported a woman’s right to have an abortion and gay rights, I applauded you. But what I liked the most was your willingness to raise taxes in the face of opposition from your own party. It’s not that I like paying taxes any more than the next guy, but it was your political courage that I admired. Just a couple weeks ago, I was talking to one of your aides on the phone and he used the phrase again--”compassionate conservative”--and it sounded like a winner.

Then, last Sunday, you vetoed AB 101, the bill that would have outlawed job discrimination against homosexuals.

Now I find myself understanding the “conservative” part, but not the “compassionate” part.

You’d been telling gays around the state for quite awhile that you supported their cause and that you’d more than likely sign a bill like 101. The original bill was even watered down to make it easier for you to sign it. You’ve been entertained in the home of Orange County gay Republicans, who convinced themselves that working through the system was the best way to work their way into the political mainstream.

It sounds to me like you took their campaign money and sold them out on 101.

In your veto message, you said there were adequate protections on the books to protect gays and lesbians. You said business would be unfairly burdened by 101, although the state Chamber of Commerce--the bedrock of business--didn’t oppose the bill.

If they had hooked up one of those buzzers to you every time you fudged the truth, you would have sounded like rush hour in mid-town Manhattan.

Someone said sexual orientation shouldn’t be a category for job protection. I agree; we should live in a society where

a person’s competency is the criterion, not sexual persuasion. But we don’t live in that kind of society; that’s why minority groups have looked to government for protection.

You could have sent the message, even if it was symbolic and duplicative of laws on the books, that it’s day’s end for workplace discrimination. You could have told a sometimes-fearful and wary gay constituency that “coming out” doesn’t carry the risk of job loss or harassment.

Instead, the right wing of the party leaned on you, and you buckled. I understand that politicians have to play politics; I don’t necessarily even begrudge them that. But when the sacrificial lambs are people and not some pork barrel project, it offends me.

I’m sure you’ve heard from your gay-activist supporters, if they still exist. I’m guessing they’ve tried to explain how you’ve basically treated them as pawns in a political game and now discarded them. I’m sure they appreciate being trotted out as evidence of your compassionate conservatism and then thrown to the wolves.

While you were anguishing over 101, with the source of your anguish being how to finesse your veto message and not lose political credibility, I’m sure you concluded that jettisoning gay supporters won’t cost you much.

You probably figured most of them would vote Democratic anyway and why risk further antagonism from your party’s right wing, when the only victims are gays.

That’s probably sound political strategy. The outrage from gay activists now, which burst into the streets almost as a reflex action after your veto, will dissipate. After selling them out, you even had the gall to make political points off of their protest. That was vintage Richard M. Nixon.

As for me, I don’t have any particular stake in 101, other than as a citizen looking to it as a benchmark for a politician’s courage. Had you long opposed gay rights, like a William E. Dannemeyer, I could have shrugged off your veto. But everything you’ve said about gay rights before the veto leads me to believe that you support the philosophy behind it. And still you killed it for a few pieces of political silver.

Long after the furor dies down over the merits of 101, that’s what I’m going to remember about Pete Wilson--the man who tried on the cloak of a compassionate conservative but found it just didn’t fit.