Wilson’s Political Agenda Is a High-Stakes Gamble : Politics: Governor pursues an ambitious set of goals. Some question whether he is spreading himself too thin.

It is a gamble and he is in deep, maybe too deep. Riding on the outcome is his political future.

At a time when his job rating is the poorest of any first-term governor in 30 years, according to the California Poll, Pete Wilson is embarking on the most ambitious political agenda of any governor in more than three decades.

Still reeling from his unpopular sponsorship of record tax increases last year, Wilson is like a prizefighter who has been pummeled to the canvas and come up swinging for a knockout. It is a go-for-broke, in-your-face strategy.

In a tumultuous, recession-plagued election year when officeholders everywhere seem to be vulnerable, Wilson has launched four major campaign efforts:

* He is pushing a contentious ballot initiative that would substantially reduce welfare benefits and attempt to prod recipients into jobs or schooling. A second feature would give the governor more control over the budget process. Democrats call it “a power grab.”

* After having out-finessed Democrats on redistricting by jockeying the issue into the state Supreme Court, which adopted a plan generally favorable to Republicans, the governor is following up by trying to elect enough GOP candidates to take control of the Assembly for the first time in 24 years.

* As the Republican governor of the state with the biggest bloc of electoral votes, Wilson is the natural choice of the President to be his reelection campaign chairman for California. Orchestrating the delivery of California for President Bush seemed like easy duty a few months ago, but the task is now fraught with potential headaches and embarrassment.

* Wilson handpicked John Seymour, a little-known state senator from Orange County, to be his successor in the U.S. Senate. Fifteen months later, Seymour is little known and the governor has committed valuable resources to help him get elected and preserve the GOP seat.

“It’s real table-stakes political poker,” said Mervin D. Field, director of the California Poll. “When you look at him and see what he’s doing and visualize the classic, archetypal politician--play it safe, never volunteer, always react--what Wilson is doing is putting that image to shreds. He’s throwing the dice.”

But some close to the governor, who do not want to be identified or quoted directly, are worried that he is overextended. They contend that he should have picked just one or two good fights and concentrated on them.

These advisers argue that it is not too late for Wilson to back away from a couple of battles--Bush’s troubled campaign and Seymour’s underdog struggle--and assume basically the role of a prominent sideline rooter. The fact is, they assert, the President’s race will be managed from Washington anyway and Seymour will stand or fall on his own.

They point out that Wilson has an additional problem--running state government in a time of a persistent budget deficit. And he is heading into another bruising battle with an increasingly antagonistic Legislature over spending and taxes.

Attorney Steven A. Merksamer, a Republican activist who was former Gov. George Deukmejian’s chief of staff, said “the proof will be in the pudding” whether Wilson has tried to do too much. But he added that during the Deukmejian era, “we were always very concerned about having too much on our plate. It was our view you could only focus on a couple of things at a time, particularly politically.

“The governor and his top people only have so much time in the day. You have to prioritize.”

Merksamer recalled that when Deukmejian was in his second year as governor--as Wilson is now--he sponsored a ballot initiative to “reform” redistricting by taking the process away from the Legislature. Voters rejected the measure.

“We devoted a great deal of effort to that and it diverted time and attention from other things,” he said. “You never saw us go out and lead another initiative drive again.”

But others view Wilson as a different breed, one who has the ability to fight several battles concurrently.

“He’s a consummate 24-hour-a-day workaholic. I think he handles it,” said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, who has watched four governors close-up. Two new senior advisers to Wilson recently quipped that in this governor’s office, a halftime job means a 12-hour workday.

Wilson demonstrated his political dexterity Saturday at a state Republican Party convention in Burlingame. The governor’s advisers, acting at his behest, helped head off a possible embarrassment for the President. They were largely responsible for persuading Bush campaign officials to “pull the plug”--as one put it--on a hazardous effort to win a state party endorsement for the President’s reelection bid.

An endorsement would have required a two-thirds vote of delegates to suspend the rules, and Wilson’s operatives strongly felt that any potential gain for Bush was far outweighed by the risk of failure, especially with an aggressive opposition campaign being waged by supporters of Patrick J. Buchanan.

Instead, state party officials agreed to allow delegates to express their preference for either Bush or Buchanan in a standing “straw vote” today.

“Neither the governor nor the President could afford to lose that two-thirds vote,” one Wilson associate said. “And they didn’t know how it would go.”

Meanwhile, Wilson operatives also were busy pushing Seymour’s candidacy at the convention. And in a luncheon speech to the 2,000 delegates, the governor hit all the bases--belittling the Democratic presidential candidates, attacking Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (“the darling of San Francisco cafe society”) and pitching his welfare initiative to loud applause.

Virtually everybody agrees that the stakes are high this year for Wilson, whom the California Poll recently found to be the only first-term governor since Edmund G. (Pat) Brown to suffer from a negative job rating. (Wilson: excellent/good 28%; poor/very poor 35%)

“His hands are full. It’s going to be a wild and woolly political act,” Field said. “If he loses, he’s not going to look good.” And worse than that, Field said, even if Wilson wins all these battles, his looks may not improve very much if the economy stays bad.

“The economy will push out all other issues,” Field said. “There’s a lot to lose on the downside, but he’s not going to gain as much on the upside if he wins. Any loses will be exaggerated and any gains deflated.”

George Gorton, Wilson’s longtime political director, conceded that if the governor loses all his election battles “it will be lonely up here for him . . . and we’re all in great trouble.” But he contended that no single fight “is make or break”--not even the welfare-budget initiative, which Gorton is managing.

The consensus is that to avoid political embarrassment Wilson must win the initiative battle and at least come close to having Republicans take control of the Assembly. After all, these are two fights he picked himself--by proposing the initiative and steering redistricting away from the Legislature and into the Supreme Court. Success in both efforts also could restore support he lost among Republicans when he raised taxes.

Politics aside, Wilson sees both of these efforts as “good government” issues. The welfare proposals would cut state spending by roughly $700 million annually and, he believes, push many recipients into jobs. Providing the governor with emergency powers to trim programs when the Legislature fails to pass a budget on time would combat legislative inertia. And electing more Republicans to the Assembly--especially Wilson think-alikes--would provide friendly votes for his bills.

The latest California Poll, conducted in mid-January, found the public to be ambivalent about the initiative--feeling “a deep sense of pity for needy people, especially children, and a strong desire to correct perceived excesses and distortions in the welfare system.”

Gorton is engaged in a $1-million drive to collect 615,958 voter signatures by April 17 to qualify the measure for the November ballot. “We’re on track,” he said last week. “We’ve signed up over a quarter-million.”

Gorton also just mailed to half a million, politically conservative households a signature petition and fund-raising solicitation.

In the Assembly elections, Republicans must pick up eight seats to win control of the chamber and oust Brown as Speaker. They now have 33, to the Democrats’ 47. Joe Shumate, the governor’s new in-house political adviser, contends that “Republicans are a cinch to get 36 seats and Democrats probably also will get 36. And I believe we’ll wind up with between 38 and 42.”

The governor has been trying to recruit GOP candidates, not always with success. One potentially strong candidate bowed out, complaining about the term limits and lack of pension benefits--and reminding Wilson that he had strongly endorsed Proposition 140, which imposed these restrictions.

The governor’s former in-house political adviser, Marty Wilson (no relation), is now a strategist for Seymour. “The governor doesn’t have to be successful on everything this year, but he’s going to have to point to some major victories in November,” the former aide said.

“He’s not spread too thin. But he’s spread to the max.”

Gorton said he sees all these things working together, with the welfare issue providing verbal fodder for Bush, Seymour and the legislative candidates, and each campaign contributing to the GOP “ground game”--the nuts-and-bolts voter registration, absentee ballot and get-out-the-vote efforts.

And of the four battles, which is Wilson’s top priority? “I don’t know that he has set one,” Gorton said. “It’s like choosing your daughter over your son.”

That is what worries other Wilson loyalists. “He doesn’t have the resources to do it all,” one of them said.