Wilson Vows No Retreat in State Budget Battle : Governor: He bashes Democratic programs in address to the convention from Sacramento via TV.

Addressing the GOP convention via a remote television hookup while trapped in Sacramento’s budget gridlock, Gov. Pete Wilson borrowed words from Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant Wednesday night and promised “to fight it out on this line even if it takes all summer.”

Although California’s Capitol is gripped in its longest budget stalemate ever while the state pays bills with IOUs for the first time since the Great Depression, Wilson indicated he was in no mood to compromise with Democratic legislative leaders.

“There is a time and a place to take a stand against tax-and-spend politics--and that place is here and that time is now,” the governor declared, sitting at his Capitol office desk with an American flag in the background. “Nothing would please me more than to sign the right budget for California--a budget that is balanced and balanced without increased taxes.

“Tough times demand tough choices,” he said. “Here in California, there will be no deficit spending. We will not repeat the sins of Washington in Sacramento.”

Wilson’s speech was shown on giant movie screens that hung over the convention floor. But the vast majority of delegates, as is the custom with most speakers, seemed to be paying little attention to the address as they chatted with one another and strolled about the aisles. Indeed, most may not have been familiar with the Statehouse fight he was talking about during the first half of his 10-minute speech.

The California delegation, however, paid close attention to the governor, periodically holding up “Pete” signs and standing to cheer.

The governor knew beforehand that he would be largely ignored by delegates outside of the California section, aides said, so he aimed his remarks at TV viewers, particularly in his home state. But only C-SPAN carried all of the address, which was delivered in prime time in the Central and Eastern zones. CNN gave viewers glimpses of it.

The beleaguered governor, suffering from a historically-low job rating in polls, passed up an invaluable opportunity to give the convention’s designated “Big Tent” speech from the podium. An advocate of abortion rights, it was to have been Wilson’s role to persuade delegates and the nation that there was room under the party’s tent for people of varied views on controversial issues.

But Wilson chose to stay home and, he announced, keep working toward a budget compromise. Actually, aides indicated, the governor was motivated less by a desire to take advantage of any negotiating opportunities as he was the fear of bad public relations if he should leave the state for a political convention during the budget crisis.

“There’s a lot of symbolism,” conceded his deputy chief of staff, George Dunn. “It would have been inappropriate for the governor to say it’s acceptable to leave the state to give a speech when technology exists to do it by satellite.”

But one Wilson adviser, who had wanted him to attend the convention, lamented that “there’s a siege mentality in the governor’s office” because of the seven-week long budget gridlock.

All of the governor’s senior advisers emphatically denied speculation that Wilson merely was looking for an excuse to avoid the convention. According to this theory, the governor did not wish to be associated with the underdog President Bush, he was reluctant to address the abortion issue at a convention dominated by anti-abortion conservatives and he wanted to dodge questions about California’s budget mess and sour economy.

“That’s ludicrous,” exclaimed Wilson’s chief of staff, Bob White. He and other advisers pointed out that the governor is Bush’s California campaign chairman. And he waded into the abortion controversy by persuading California delegates on Sunday--also by remote TV hookup--not to press for a floor fight on the issue. At the same time, Wilson promised to battle to make sure this is the last GOP platform that contains anti-abortion language, a pledge that angered some conservatives in the California delegation but pleased many moderates.

The issue that has alienated many California conservatives from Wilson, however, is taxes--specifically the nearly $8 billion in tax increases he signed last year in his first budget crisis.

Illustrative of that disenchantment with the governor was the action Wednesday of Jon S. Fleischman of Cupertino, state chairman of California Young Americans for Freedom. Riding the delegation bus to the convention hall, Fleischman took a lime-green Wilson cap, circled the name “Pete” and drew a slash through it. Then he printed “Pro Tax” on the baseball-style cap.

“Yeah, what he’s doing right now is good,” Fleischman said. “But a year ago he was twisting Republicans’ arms to raise taxes (in the Legislature). He isn’t conservative. He’s a pragmatist.”

In his speech, Wilson once again described himself as a “compassionate conservative”--a label he pinned on himself last year, but has dropped in recent months as he began cutting sharply into government services amid the budget crisis.

Wilson characterized a “compassionate conservative” as one who is “tight with tax dollars, sure; but we’re far more concerned with conserving opportunity and individual human potential than with saving money.” He talked about “prevention” programs, such as prenatal care.

But most of his speech was devoted to a bashing of Democrats.

“The Democratic majorities of Congress and the Statehouses, entrenched and arrogant in their gerrymandered safe seats, have failed to sense the outrage sweeping across California and America today--outrage at those who tax and spend and then spend to tax again,” Wilson declared.

“Who’s fighting us every step of the way? The Democrats,” he continued. “Not the paycheck Democrats who pay checks, but the status quo Democrats in Congress and the state houses who raise taxes.”

Wilson himself only last year had raised taxes higher than any other California governor in history.

The governor offered “a simple proposition for the American people: Give George Bush and America a new Congress--a Republican Congress--for just two years. . . . In just two years, the President and that new Congress can break the gridlock and bring real change to America. . . . If we don’t, throw us out.”

Wilson himself now is regarded by most political experts as being in danger of getting “thrown out” of office in 1994 when he runs for reelection.

Lamenting the opportunity Wilson lost by not attending this year’s convention, his spokesman Dan Schnur observed, “If we’d gone, you’d not been able to turn on the TV without seeing him.” In fact, many network TV shows canceled interviews they previously had scheduled with the governor because the setting was Sacramento.