Wilson Opens Bid for 2nd Term on Optimistic Note : Politics: Governor says he wants to lead state ‘in good times.’ He sticks to anti-crime issues at Westminster stop.

Pledging “strong and unflinching leadership” to fight crime and create jobs, Gov. Pete Wilson on Tuesday formally opened his bid for a second term as California’s chief executive and said it would be the last campaign of his long political career.

With stops in Fontana, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, Wilson began a two-day campaign tour with an upbeat message of optimism for a state that throughout his first term has suffered from economic recession, natural and man-made disasters and a rising fear of violent crime.

“I think this state has a magnificent future,” Wilson said. “I came to this office at a time when it was particularly challenging. Having been through the hard times, I would like to have the opportunity to lead California in good times.”

To get that chance, Wilson, who has only token opposition in the Republican primary, will have to defeat one of three Democrats who are vying for the right to face him in the fall: Treasurer Kathleen Brown, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi and state Sen. Tom Hayden.

Wilson begins the campaign behind in the polls. A year ago, public opinion surveys gave him the lowest ratings of any governor in 30 years and showed him losing badly to his major Democratic challengers. He has rebounded in recent months with vigorous attacks on illegal immigration and street crime.

Already, Wilson has established himself as one of the most durable politicians in the state’s history. He was elected three times to the Legislature, served three terms as mayor of San Diego and won two elections to the U.S. Senate. He left the Senate in the middle of his second term when he won the election for governor in 1990.

A former Marine, Wilson has forged a career as a tenacious legislator and government executive as well as a relentless campaigner. The touchstones of his past campaigns have been support for business and advocacy of stricter treatment of violent criminals, elements that were on display Tuesday.

Praising Westminster’s pioneering anti-gang program and flanked by Orange County’s leading law enforcers, Wilson, 60, kicked off his reelection campaign here after stops in Fontana and Los Angeles.

Riding high on his Monday signing of the “three strikes” sentencing law, Wilson recited a litany of his anti-crime measures and commitments over the years in front a crowd of about 100 supporters outside the Westminster police station.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, Sheriff Brad Gates and five police chiefs were among those who crowded next to Wilson on the small outdoor stage.

“I’m grateful and deeply flattered to have your support and endorsement. You in Orange County are especially well-served by your sheriff and your D.A.,” said Wilson, adding that the county has always been key to his success.

“I have always looked to Orange County as a bastion of sound thinking and good government,” he said.

Wilson chose Westminster as his Orange County kick-off site in order to laud the city’s TARGET program, a multi-agency gang unit funded in part by state seed money that has reduced gang-related crime by 60% over the past two years.

“I think we should spread TARGET throughout the state. It clearly works,” Wilson said. Capizzi praised Wilson for supporting TARGET and other programs modeled on it that are now being implemented throughout Orange County, including in Santa Ana and Garden Grove. The programs unite probation officers with city police investigators and a deputy district attorney in a team charged with getting the most dangerous gang leaders off city streets.

“It’s not surprising. (Wilson) can spot something that’s good and protect public safety and this is no exception,” Capizzi said of Wilson’s support.

Also present in a show of support was Ky Ngo, chairman of the Vietnamese American Political Action Committee.

“Our main concern now is that he’s very anti-crime. I feel the governor’s been with this issue for a very long time,” Ngo said. “Besides that, he cares about education.”

Wilson kicked off the campaign with a low-key rally inside a cavernous warehouse at California Steel Industries, a foreign-owned company on the site of the former Kaiser Steel plant. Wilson said he helped cut through red tape to speed a recent expansion at the factory, which employs about 1,000 people.

Fontana is in the heart of the Inland Empire, home to the kind of swing Democrats once credited with electing Ronald Reagan but who sided with President Clinton in 1992. Wilson strategists say the governor must win back those voters if he hopes to be reelected in November.

Speaking before an early morning audience of about 300 supporters, Wilson offered a job description of the post he has held for three years.

“The governor of California must be many things--a crisis manager when the earth shakes or the forests burn, the chief salesman for California jobs all across the country . . . and a leader of conviction who stands up for what’s right no matter who’s opposed or what the consequences,” he said.

Contrasting himself with his opponents, he said that he was proposing no flashy new programs. His only pledge was to stay a course he is convinced is the best for the state.

Wilson’s Fontana speech was interrupted by protests from a handful of Corona residents who are upset about his decision to order their town sprayed with the pesticide malathion to fight the Mediterranean fruit fly. The demonstrators were ushered out by company security officers, and Wilson used the incident to stress his commitment to economic recovery.

The spraying, he said, is necessary to prevent a quarantine of California agriculture that he said could cost as many as 130,000 jobs.

“I think they are a little confused,” Wilson said. “There is no evidence it is harmful to human beings. . . . It’s just not tolerable to allow baseless fears, no matter how real they may be to them, to destroy people’s livelihoods.”

The protest was the only glitch in Wilson’s day, which for the most part focused on the crime issue. Even when he mentioned the economy, Wilson tied it to crime.

“We are in need of jobs for a growing population,” Wilson said. “Employers don’t bring jobs and they don’t keep jobs in a neighborhood that is no longer safe. If it’s not safe for their customers, if it’s not safe for their employees, they’re going to go somewhere else.”

Wilson acknowledged that in three years he has not been able to make Californians any safer. But he blamed the Legislature for resisting his calls for tougher criminal justice laws.

“I wish that I could say California were less dangerous than when I had come to office,” Wilson said. “But I don’t have any assurance that that’s the case.”

Neither Brown, Garamendi nor Hayden have any consistent record of supporting stricter sentencing laws, Wilson said.

He recalled his work on behalf of the “victims’ bill of rights” initiative in 1982, the campaign to oust Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird in 1986 and the speedy-trial ballot measure in 1990.

“California doesn’t need a governor who started talking tough about crime just 12 weeks ago,” he said.

In Los Angeles, Wilson picked up endorsements from the county probation officers association and the deputy sheriffs association. The deputies group supported Democrat Dianne Feinstein when she opposed Wilson in 1990.

But members of another law enforcement group, the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, attended the press conference at the county jail and handed out leaflets criticizing Wilson for approving a parole policy that allows ex-convicts to remain on the streets even after they are caught using drugs or committing other offenses. Administration officials say the policy is intended to reduce prison overcrowding by offering drug treatment and counseling to wayward but nonviolent parolees.

Wilson made only passing references to issues other than crime.

He downplayed the state’s budget problems, contending that he had averted a “fiscal train wreck” by cutting state spending. He did not mention that he also supported a huge tax increase in 1991 or that neither the spending cuts nor the tax hikes have balanced the budget.

In an interview with a group of reporters between appearances, Wilson rejected the idea of running for President in 1996, even if he wins a second term as governor.

Times staff writer Lee Romney contributed to this report.