Democrats Say Wilson’s Budget Talk Was Racist : Politics: Leaders at Anaheim meeting call his speech discriminatory and more befitting ex-Klan leader David Duke.

Saying the governor has unfairly targeted welfare mothers, two state Democratic leaders Saturday called Pete Wilson’s annual budget message racist, sexist and more befitting former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke than a moderate Republican.

Wilson’s speech Thursday “pilloried welfare recipients and people who were out of jobs,” state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) told 300 activists attending the quarterly meeting of the Democratic Party’s executive board at the Grand Hotel.

In that message, Wilson proposed a $60.2-billion budget that would fund growth in public schools and prisons but would cut medical services to the poor, slash welfare payments by up to 25% and repeal tax credits for renters.

Vowing to defeat Wilson’s proposals and elect more Democrats this year, Roberti added: “What else can we Democrats do except get nasty when someone articulates this? Except for the three-piece suit, you would think that speech was written by David Duke.”

Earlier Saturday, state Democratic Party Chairman Philip Angelides voiced a similar criticism, calling the governor’s speech “David Duke-ism.”

“It is a deliberate strategy to divide (the rich and middle class from the poor), with an element of hatred,” the Sacramento developer said.

“What I think is objectionable and immoral is to single out poor people” for cuts in benefits, Angelides said, rather than asking all Californians “to do their fair share” to pay for public services.

Also Saturday, dark horse presidential candidate Larry Agran complained that voters here are shut out of the process of choosing their party’s nominee because the key primaries are held in New Hampshire, South Dakota and Maine--not California.

In addition, Democratic activists debated whether to pursue their three-year tradition of endorsing candidates before the June primary election or make no party endorsements this year. A key concern in this reapportionment year is that a final decision on state Assembly and Senate boundaries will not come until Jan. 28, possibly later. So, Angelides and others said, there may not be enough time to review all candidates fairly. A decision on the endorsement question is to come this morning.

This weekend’s meeting was partly a “networking opportunity” for party regulars as well as an election-year strategy session, participants said.

Throughout the meeting, Democratic leaders such as Roberti and Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-S. San Francisco) emphasized that the key to November victories in California and the presidential race was a strong Democratic campaign for economic recovery.

“We’re the party of jobs. We’re the party of the middle class,” said Speier, who promised to cut red tape for businesses around the state, although “not at the expense of environmental protection.”

Back from campaigning in New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Agran received a standing ovation after he urged a different method of selecting presidents, one that would let California voters help choose the party’s nominee.

For now, Agran complained, “California does not count in the primary. In Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota--these voters are larger than life. But when you come back here, 30 million people have no effect in the presidential selection process.”

No candidate will come to California until at least April, Agran said, “unless they’re fund raising.”

But later, party chairman Angelides described Agran’s concern as “non-consequential.” California voters will play a decisive role in the November election, he noted.

In a brief ceremony Saturday morning, party activists honored homemaker, politician’s wife and Army Reserve nurse Robin Umberg, 36, for serving at a Colorado military hospital from Dec. 6, 1990, to June 27, 1991, during the Persian Gulf War.

Accepting the award on behalf of “all moms” called to active duty for the war, Umberg described “the feeling of isolation” from her husband and three children that never lifted during seven months of active duty.

As head nurse at a neurosurgical unit for war casualties, Umberg said she and her colleagues quickly “realized our emotional stress would soon be resolved but they would live with their disabilities for the rest of their lives.”

In one respect, active duty was a blessing, Umberg said. “It was wonderful living seven months without a kitchen. And no grocery shopping. And I never touched a vacuum cleaner. And best of all for seven months, I didn’t have to attend a political fund-raiser” for anyone, including her husband, Tom Umberg, a first-term Democratic assemblyman from Garden Grove.

But she also knew her family sacrificed in her absence. When her husband was in Sacramento, a family baby-sitter cared for their three children, then aged 7, 5 and 2. They were strongly affected by her absence, she said. Her youngest child stuttered for a time after her return. Her oldest child, who once wanted to be a teacher, now has another aspiration--to be President of the United States.

She recounted that her daughter said, “I think I could do a better job than Bush did (in the war). I think that he should have had much better sense than to send mommies away before Christmas.”