Wilson and GOP May Be Facing Their Vietnam - Politics: The reaction to the governor’s veto of a gay-rights bill illustrates the importance of social issues to Republicans. But is the right in a forgiving mood?

Images of flags burning, effigies swaying, long-haired protesters facing down police in riot gear. The rage triggered by Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of AB 101, a bill to prohibit job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, has stirred a sense of deja vu .

In the mid-1960s, the California Democratic Party was torn apart by the Vietnam War. In the 1990s, social issues may become the Republicans’ Vietnam. And intraparty dissension, like that among Democrats over the war, could have national ramifications.

In 1966, a widening schism between Democratic liberal activists and the party’s elected officials helped defeat incumbent Democratic Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. By 1968, dissent stirred by the war helped bring down a Democratic President and thwart his hand-picked successor.

With Republicans feuding over gay rights, taxes and abortion, the chilling thought that history might repeat itself may have passed through Wilson’s mind, as he moved toward vetoing the gay-rights bill. It certainly must have concerned him since.

Did Wilson veto the legislation--after long intimating he would sign it--in hopes of quelling conservative restiveness over his moderate ways?

That hasn’t happened. The right is unforgiving. The governor--or someone around him--must be smart enough to understand that Wilson can never pass all the right’s litmus tests.

Still, the dominant perception is that he “caved in” to the religious right to further his own political ambitions. Perhaps a more accurate analysis is that his strategy was geared to helping Sen. John Seymour in his 1992 primary election against arch-conservative Rep. William E. Dannemeyer.

Remember what happened in New Jersey last November? Sen. Bill Bradley was the first Democrat up for election after Democratic Gov. Jim Florio’s wildly unpopular tax increases. Voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Florio by nearly ousting the popular senator, who refused to comment on the new taxes.

In California, Seymour is not out of the woods, even though he attempted to inoculate himself by announcing his opposition to the gay-rights bill the day before Wilson’s veto. Seymour is too much Wilson’s creature, and his own late conversion, like Wilson’s, has angered too many people on both sides.

This has been a no-win situation for Wilson from the beginning. No matter what he did, somebody had to go away mad. It should be no surprise that he jettisoned the gay community, hardly your usual Republican bastion.

But by his choice of alliances, Wilson may have risked his standing with the general public. The veto alone is not enough to turn middle-of-the road voters against him. Recent polls indicate that support for the vetoed bill is wider than it is deep.

Still, there is real danger that Wilson can lose credibility with the public--and the media--because his veto makes it appear that he bowed to special-interest constituencies within his own party. That perception unmercifully dogged Democrat Walter F. Mondale throughout the 1984 presidential campaign. And the greatest damage to Wilson politically, as a result of his AB 101 stance, may be that he looked like Mondale.

Of course Wilson’s veto was political. Every policy decision is political. But was it crass? Does it deserve violence and vituperation? There is real personal anguish in Wilson’s veto message. And an economic argument (whether strong or weak) consistent with Wilson’s oft-repeated vow that he would not support any moves that might threaten California’s business climate.

Whether or not Wilson vetoed the legislation on its merits, what is more important is that his action is universally perceived as political. Nobody believes Pete Wilson. How can a political leader lead if nobody believes him?

Why can’t Californians give him the benefit of the doubt? The anger and cynicism that has greeted the veto underscore the public distrust of politicians.

But skepticism goes beyond that. Wilson’s actions on the gay-rights bill repeat a pattern of behavior that permeated state budget negotiations--tough rhetoric followed by what can be viewed either as accommodation or a political flip-flop. It is happening again with Wilson’s announcement, in the wake of the gay-rights demonstrations, that he will now seek a bill he can sign.

How could Wilson misjudge or misunderstand not only the depth of the right’s disdain for him, but the intensity of the gay community’s response?

Once again, Washington myopia may have tripped him up. In Washington, Wilson could cast one vote of 535 on a controversial issue--and cast it 3,000 miles away. Distance and shared responsibility tend to insulate politicians from constituents. That doesn’t happen when you’re governor of a media-driven state.

Wilson laid the groundwork for his veto during the last several weeks, when he began to back off from the gay-rights bill. This should have alerted proponents of the bill that a gubernatorial change of heart and mind was possible. Was it a clue Wilson gave to blunt the impact of his decision?

It didn’t. The shibboleth of the gay-rights bill was raised too high. The fight over content had long ago been conceded; this is now a war about emotionally charged symbols.

When AB 101 became the embodiment of the debate between liberals and conservatives over “human rights” vs. “human values,” the bill, the governor and public policy in this state became victims of morality politics.

When George Deukmejian vetoed similar legislation in 1984, the reaction was far more muted. But Deukmejian never gave the gay community hope for anything else. And, perhaps more important, the world and the political environment have changed in the last seven years.

For conservatives, the political stakes are certainly higher than in 1984. Then the right wing of the California Republican Party drove GOP politics and policy. Today, arch-conservatives are fighting--somewhat successfully--to prove that the reports of their demise are premature.

For homosexuals, the stakes are higher, too. And they are not merely political. In 1984, the gay political movement was gaining clout; today, it is faltering. Gay politics has been affected by AIDS, its leadership ranks have thinned or energies have been redirected.

The intensity of the gay community’s reaction to Wilson’s veto reflects its feeling of vulnerability in a society that has reacted to AIDS with fear, suspicion and a lack of understanding of the disease and its consequences. It also stems from a recognition that AIDS does have economic consequences, because employers can be skittish about employing high-risk individuals and about the costs such employment might incur. To homosexuals who see their livelihood threatened by AIDS, AB 101 has become all the more vital. It is a venting of frustration that goes far beyond just one bill.

The debate over the morality of the Vietnam War not only tore apart a party, it divided the country. Will the debate over the politics of morality, exemplified by AB 101, tear us asunder again?

There is an obvious danger here for a society in which compromise and consensus are necessary to achieve governance and in which these basic tools of democracy are already hard to come by.