Wilson Talks, Acts Like Candidate for 2nd Term

Even with his natural poker face, Republican Pete Wilson had trouble maintaining a springtime coyness Thursday about whether he will seek a second term for his troubled California governorship.

Campaign Wilson ’94 is on the road, Wilson indicated Thursday at a breakfast meeting with Southern California political reporters, even if he would not say so outright.

Democrats may be itching for a shot at Wilson, sensing that he is vulnerable after more than two years of struggling to cope with natural, economic and social crises and plummeting popularity in opinion polls.

The Democrats want to build on their dramatic victory last fall and capture the governorship for only the second time since the Ronald Reagan era began in 1967.

Yet as tough as times may be for the GOP, Wilson indicated that he is not about to walk away from the job he has said he always wanted, though he may be months from a formal announcement.

Asked whether he intended to run for reelection, the 59-year-old chief executive said: “I will think very carefully about it. I am being encouraged to do so.”

What are the chances that he would not seek a second term?

Wilson, pausing, then deliberate: “I would say a very, very tiny one.”

Wilson declared that he did not expect to be challenged from the right wing of his party in the June, 1994, Republican primary. “I’m not worried about the primary,” he said.

After the Hollywood breakfast, the governor sent a further signal of his intention to run: He went to a South-Central Los Angeles wrecking yard where he promised to get tough with carjackers, a setting with all the trappings of a campaign event, captured by cameras from more than half a dozen television stations. It was a rerun of an event he held in Northern California weeks ago.

Without making a premature declaration of candidacy, Wilson sent a firm message that he is running and is capable of crushing any Republican opposition from the conservatives who have bitterly opposed him on issues such as abortion, gay rights and taxes.

To some degree, Wilson and his moderate allies may have overcome one of the factors that buoyed Democratic optimism: a fractured GOP in which many conservative activists yearned for a champion to carry their cause into a fiery primary fight with Wilson.

The 1992 election was a sobering one for the GOP. Since then, some conservative leaders have been talking party unity rather than political jihad. Wilson-allied moderates won the top offices at the GOP state convention three weeks ago and the prospects of an intra-party bloodletting seem to have faded.

At the same time, Democrats risk a bruising primary if the two major potential candidates of the moment become contenders. They are state Treasurer Kathleen Brown and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi.

Wilson observed with relish Thursday: “I think there’s the potential for a spirited Democratic primary and I encourage that.”

This was a sign of the Wilson-as-campaigner spirit that aides said they like to see, and it stood in contrast to the dour Wilson-as-governor and policy wonk battling drought, floods, earthquakes, mudslides, riots, economic recession and balky Democrats in the Legislature.

Among Wilson’s aides, there is no doubt that the governor is running.

“There’s no question about it,” said one adviser. “No one close to him has the slightest doubt.”

A sure sign was the recent formation of Citizens for California’s Future, a grass-roots organization of 300 Wilson supporters forming the skeleton for a statewide campaign. Later this year, the structure is expected to be formalized under longtime campaign manager George Gorton.

One problem is that Wilson’s political treasury is half a million dollars in debt. Usually, the governor would be building his war chest for next year. But now he must raise money nearly every night to retire the deficit incurred by his backing of other candidates in 1992, aides said.

The debt is expected to be wiped out by summer. Still, Wilson will trail the pace set by Brown, who has banked about $2 million.

The pace of Wilson’s campaign-style events has accelerated in recent weeks. He recently staged a multi-event day in San Francisco’s Chinatown, shaking hands under the glare of television cameras.

Wilson’s appearance at the Long Beach Naval Station a week ago had a campaign aura with hard-hatted workers chanting “Pete! Pete!” before the governor spoke out against the pending closure of other California military bases.

On Thursday, Wilson’s trip to South-Central Los Angeles invoked the symbols of a fully involved campaign. The backdrop was two cars whose windows had been shot out in confrontations with thieves.

There were two of the staples of his 1990 bid for governor: By his side were crime victims--the son and daughter of a Chatsworth man killed in a carjacking. And Wilson repeated the lament that California has the “best cops” and the “worst laws” regarding crime.

The governor acknowledged that he will be seen more often in media-dominant Southern California and less in Sacramento, where he can generate little statewide television coverage.

Asked if he would be spending more time in Los Angeles, the governor replied: “I think so.”

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