Wilson Assails Buchanan as Anti-Semitic

Gov. Pete Wilson on Monday accused Patrick J. Buchanan of waging a “downright racist and anti-Semitic” campaign and derided the Republican presidential challenger as a poor imitation of “real conservatives” like Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

Wilson, chairman of President Bush’s reelection efforts in California, struck back in response to remarks last weekend by Buchanan that the June 2 California primary would amount to an ideological showdown between true conservatives and the political philosophies of Wilson and Bush.

Even if Bush lines up the GOP’s nomination before June 2, Buchanan said he will press his campaign in California to give voice to what he called the underrepresented political followers of Goldwater, a former U. S. senator from Arizona and the GOP presidential nominee in 1964. Buchanan said such voters are “waiting for someone to stand up to George Bush, Pete Wilson-style Republicanism.”

Wilson, leader of the California delegation to the GOP national convention next summer, said he believes Bush will have piled up more than enough votes to end Buchanan’s presidential bid before the California primary. “It will be totally academic,” he said.

Speaking about Buchanan at a Stockton job fair for senior citizens, Wilson snapped: “I think some of his comments have been downright racist and anti-Semitic. There is no place in our Republican Party for that.” Wilson did not elaborate.

It is extraordinarily rare for one high-level elected official to accuse a presidential candidate of his own party of racism or anti-Semitism. From the outset, Buchanan has been dogged by suggestions that he is a racist, a notion he fiercely denies.

Wilson, whom polls show to be in deep political trouble with California coservatives for his support of a $7-billion tax increase to help close a budget shortage last year, also said the outspoken Buchanan was not “tough” like Reagan or Goldwater but, instead, “mean-spirited.”

The governor told an impromptu press conference that it was “truly presumptuous” for Buchanan to compare himself to “real conservatives” like Reagan and Goldwater.

“I have served with both men for a long time,” Wilson said. “I know them both well. He ain’t no Ronald Reagan or any Barry Goldwater, not close.”

As for Buchanan’s attack on the conservative credentials of Bush and Wilson, the governor told reporters: “He’s inaccurate, as usual. I am a very good conservative . . . a compassionate conservative.”

Wilson indicated that he would give little more attention to Buchanan because he has his hands full managing the state. “He has only his own mouth to manage and he is an utter failure at that,” Wilson told reporters.

Responding to Wilson, a top aide to Buchanan vowed anew Monday that the campaign intends to turn the California primary race into “a good old family feud.”

Political director Paul Erickson charged that Wilson “just doesn’t get it” and said the governor “must not have read the rules of the Republican convention lately because we’re going to be in California.”

“If Pete Wilson thinks that his and George Bush’s brand of Republicanism is any kind of extension of a Ronald Reagan-conservative Republican Party,” Erickson said, “he is not only wrong but deluded.”

Wilson’s appearance at the job fair for senior citizens with freshman Assemblyman Dean Andal (R-Stockton) also marked what aides said was the kickoff of a campaign by Wilson to help Republicans seize control of the Assembly this year.

As a result of the state Supreme Court’s reapportionment of legislative districts, many Republicans believe they have a good shot at seizing a majority in the lower chamber. Andal is running in a heavily Democratic district and the Democrats have targeted him for defeat.

Wilson also announced creation of an advisory task force to encourage the hiring of elderly Americans and dropped in on a job training center where young people were studying to earn the equivalent of a high school diploma.