Governor Plays Blame Game in ‘Infomercial’

Gov. Pete Wilson has a new video out that poses no threat to Larry King, Jay Leno or even Ross Perot, its source of inspiration. It is unlikely many viewers will see it, because the video has been sent to cable stations for play mainly on seldom-watched community access channels.

It also has been mailed to service groups--Lions and the Rotary--in case members need some “entertainment” during meetings.

The 28-minute tape--or infomercial, in Perotese--is the frustrated governor’s latest effort to find an audience for his basic message: California’s recession is not his fault; he’s doing everything possible to mend the state’s business climate, and it’s the Legislature that’s been standing in his way.

The governor keeps exhorting his advisers, saying that once the voters realize this, he won’t be so far down in the polls.

Wilson got the idea from watching Perot’s 30-minute infomercials last year, according to Dan Schnur, the governor’s communications director. “He saw the effects they had and that people were willing to watch,” the aide says. “Even if only a fraction of the Californians who watched Ross Perot see this tape, that many more people will be better informed.”

Informed is a subjective word, of course. The film has many earmarks of an early commercial for Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign. It was produced by his political operation with private contributions. But because the governor’s office is calling it an educational video--not an infomercial, let alone a political commercial--cable stations can run it for free.

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In the video, Wilson tries to turn his sharp cuts in state services into a political plus. This pitch clearly will not appeal to liberal Democrats, but it will please the Republican conservatives long leery of him. And it might even attract some Perot voters.

“It’s been painful and difficult, but we’ve actually cut $6 billion,” the governor tells viewers as he sits behind a desk in the den of his Los Angeles residence. “Many of the cuts we made were done by reducing waste. . . . We’ve achieved a more efficient, streamlined state government. Many of you have cut back in these hard times. Government must do the same.”

Wilson mentions the 125 boards and commissions he already has eliminated or proposes to, but naturally avoids such unpopular specifics as higher fees for university students and cuts in benefits for the aged, blind and disabled.

He does make a legitimate point, however, when he observes: “Some people just don’t want to face the harsh reality of unpleasant choices. People say to me, ‘Governor, don’t raise my taxes--and don’t cut my services.’

“So I ask them, you don’t want to cut education? ‘No.’ You don’t want to cut public safety and let dangerous criminals out of prison? ‘Of course not.’ You don’t want to cut higher education? ‘No.’ You don’t want to cut health and welfare? ‘Not much.’ ”

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The video opens and closes at a small factory in Los Angeles, where the governor is sitting in shirt sleeves answering questions from “concerned citizens”--in the manner of Perot or President Clinton presiding over a town hall meeting.

To hear Wilson responding to these people, it is entirely the Legislature’s fault that last year’s budget negotiations dragged on two months past the legal deadline, causing the state government to issue IOUs. Polls have indicated that this budget gridlock, more than anything else, is what sent the governor’s job rating into a nose dive.

The avoidance of another budget deadlock is the No. 1 priority of Wilson’s advisers. They see it as a probable career-finisher for the governor. They also understand that he realistically has only four months--until the end of this legislative session--to achieve some modicum of first-term success and build a record to run on next year.

That means, at the very least, reforming California’s infamous workers’ compensation system and streamlining the state’s regulatory process.

The reason that workers’ compensation has not been reformed, the Governor asserts, is that “there are lobbies in Sacramento, well-heeled, very generous at campaign time, very articulate, determined to maintain the status quo because they’re making a fortune out of it.”

So the video also represents a new attempt by Wilson to generate public pressure on the Legislature--something he never has been very good at. “What we urgently require to reverse the flow of California jobs out of state is action by the Legislature,” he tells viewers.

But legislators would add that they, in turn, also will require a more flexible, less feisty governor. Wilson moved in this direction Tuesday by saying he will consider some “two-year budgeting”--a form of deficit financing that could avoid another summer gridlock.