COLUMN RIGHT/ TOM McCLINTOCK : Dump Wilson and Restore Republicanism : Voters’ disgust with this tax-and-spend governor will taint the whole 1994 GOP ticket.

Before California Republicans again surrender to their suicidal instincts, it’s time to state the obvious: Pete Wilson will not be reelected, and his presence at the top of the ticket will condemn the party to answer for the most un-Republican policies of any governor in memory.

If party stalwarts bristle at the suggestion that Jerry Brown was a better Republican than Pete Wilson, they would do well to reacquaint themselves with what has been done during the past three years in their name: the biggest tax increase imposed by any governor in American history, deficit spending that dwarfs New York City’s recklessness in the 1970s and administrative mismanagement rated “worst in the nation” by Financial World magazine.

If good government issues don’t prompt a re-examination of the party’s future, perhaps good politics should. Wilson has the approval of just 15% of the California electorate--6 points lower than the lowest support accorded any governor in Mervin Field’s 30 years of polling. Two out of three Republicans would like to see him challenged in the 1994 primary; only 45% would vote for him today.

The sycophantic response of party leaders has been to demand “unity” under the Wilson banner. But for a party to unify, it must have a unifying theme.

For decades, the Republican party consisted of a variety of discordant elements ranging from social libertarians to the religious right. But those secondary quarrels were always subordinated to a unifying belief in Jeffersonian principles of limited government. That was the pillar that supported “big tent” Republicanism where diverse factions thrived.

George Bush in Washington and Pete Wilson in Sacramento kicked away that pillar, sending the tent crashing down and the various blocs blindly brawling over ancillary social issues.

The party cannot credibly unify around an Administration that has broken all records for higher taxes and fiscal irresponsibility. Nor can the scattered fragments of the Reagan coalition be reconciled with the rest of the Wilson record.

Businesses have suffered the environmental extremism of a Resources Agency headed by the former state director of the Sierra Club; the grievances of social conservatives could easily fill a hymnal; gun owners, who were the margin of victory for George Deukmejian, are permanently estranged by the most restrictive anti-gun laws in the state’s history, and law enforcement is about to be decimated by Wilson’s raid of local government funds.

Only two splinters of the GOP remain. One is on the leftward fringe of the party, whose chief distinction from the Democrats is in name, and which quickly dissolves into the Democratic constituency when Republicans are out of office, or on their way out of office. The second is the party leadership, united not by ideology but by the waning political patronage of the governor’s office. Not exactly a winning coalition.

Attributing Wilson’s unpopularity to a weak economy ignores his contribution to California’s plight. Taking $1,100 in new taxes from an average family of four during a recession, as Wilson did in 1991, wasn’t a likely formula for prosperity.

Blaming a Democratic Legislature will work for Wilson as well as it did for Bush.

Nor should Republicans hold out hope that growing resentment of Clinton’s economic policies will somehow help Wilson. The public’s ire is directed at politicians and parties that promise economic opportunity and deliver higher taxes, and both Clinton and Wilson are plunging together in the polls. Anyone who ever wondered where the old Reagan coalition has gone never attended a Perot rally.

Who else do the Republicans have? It really doesn’t matter; my Persian cat would do in a pinch. Gizmo the cat could lose the election far more cheaply and far less certainly than Wilson, and without inflicting massive collateral damage to every other Republican candidate. An open primary would have the added advantage of developing the Republican bench strength that will be needed to rally the party around traditional Republican governing themes in time for a resurgence in 1996.

If the Republican Party renominates Pete Wilson and thereby ratifies his stewardship of the state, Californians will have every right and every reason to hold the GOP fully accountable for the damage that has been done to their lives. Wilson’s presence at the head of the party will act as a lightning rod for voter resentment, conducting it straight down the ticket and incinerating the hopes of every hapless Republican candidate standing nearby.

The storm clouds gather. Will California Republicans re-Pete the debacle of 1992?