NEWS ANALYSIS : Sitting on a Lead, Governor Campaigns by Governing : Politics: While Democrats complain in frustration, Wilson’s office affords him taxpayer-financed resources.

Gov. Pete Wilson often has been accused of doing his job as if he were conducting a partisan campaign. Now, blessed with a solid lead in the polls, Wilson has the luxury of campaigning by doing his job.

With seven weeks to go before Election Day, the Republican chief executive has a 9-point lead over Democrat Kathleen Brown among likely voters and plenty of money in his campaign bank account, which he will use to bombard the state with television commercials touting his record and criticizing Brown.

But perhaps more important, Wilson has the powers of his office, which he has used adroitly to position himself as a fighter on three issues voters care most about: crime, the economy and illegal immigration.

Whether he does it by signing and vetoing bills--a task he has used this month to dodge Brown’s call for debates--or by issuing executive orders, filing lawsuits or writing letters to President Clinton, Wilson can campaign for reelection simply by carrying out his duties and obligations as governor.

In doing so, he can contrast himself with Brown, appearing to be above the partisan fray even as his tax-supported office and his privately funded campaign work hand-in-hand to promote his agenda and defend his record.

“It’s an old bromide,” said Larry Thomas, a top Wilson campaign adviser: “The best way to get reelected is to be a good governor.”

The best measure of how well Wilson’s strategy is working may be the increasing irritation with which Brown and her camp complain that the governor is misusing the powers of incumbency in his campaign.

Brown says that Wilson’s recent anti-crime rally, a visit to the border and his made-for-television signings of criminal justice legislation all have amounted to campaign events paid for by the taxpayers.

Further, say Brown advisers, state employees under Wilson’s control have been researching his record and producing documents that the governor’s campaign uses against Brown. Last week, Wilson used state resources to draft a speech on the passage of his package of anti-crime bills--then used campaign funds to beam the address via satellite to television stations around the state.

Even when Wilson’s actions are beyond ethical challenge, his status as governor gives him a legitimacy when he speaks that Brown, as the challenger, does not enjoy. Brown partisans believe that the governor, with careful stage managing, is able to avoid tough questioning from journalists.

“He’s out there in a protected cocoon, campaigning using taxpayer dollars,” said Steve Glazer, a senior adviser to Brown.

Wilson aides agree that the governor has advantages as an incumbent and tries to exploit that edge to the fullest. But they say he is doing nothing wrong.

“A governor is governor 24 hours a day throughout his term,” Thomas said. “If he is running for reelection, he can’t take a holiday from being governor. He can’t walk away from his responsibilities.

“To criticize the governor for carrying out his duties is a crazy, mindless charge.”

Wilson, of course, is not the first California governor to use incumbency as a campaign tool.

When Kathleen Brown’s father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, announced in 1966 that he would seek a third term as governor, he told reporters he had no immediate plans to actively campaign.

“It seems to me,” Brown said, “that the people of California have elected me governor for a period of four years, and for me to go campaigning almost 25% of that time just doesn’t seem right.”

The elder Brown went on to campaign in earnest but lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan, a result which aptly illustrates that incumbency can cut both ways. Just as sitting governors can use their powers to improve their image, they also are forced to make decisions that can displease the electorate.

Wilson, in fact, is in the midst of reviewing hundreds of bills sent to him by lawmakers at the end of the two-year legislative session. Democrats this year gave the Republican governor a break by not sending him too many bills deliberately meant to embarrass him. But almost every one of the measures on his desk has constituents who want it signed or want it vetoed, and on those matters, there is no way for Wilson to please all sides.

Kathleen Brown’s ire stems in part from her frustration over Wilson’s refusal to debate her this month because, he says, he is too busy reviewing all that legislation.

Indeed, the process can be a grueling one, and Wilson in past years was known to work well past midnight nearly every night for several weeks while reviewing the bills. But even as he ducks a confrontation with his opponent, the governor has managed to slip away from his office several times this month for events designed to put him in the best light with voters.

For example, Wilson went to Richmond, in the Bay Area, to propose an expanded program to prevent juvenile crime. He was accompanied there by New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman, a rising GOP star who was in California to help Wilson attract votes from women.

The governor also traveled to Los Angeles to sign the “one strike” bill imposing tougher sentences on rapists, and he went to Orange County to grab publicity during a law enforcement sweep of Santa Ana gang members. On Monday, in a ceremony with crime victims at the state prison in Chino, Wilson signed bills limiting prisoner rights.

And any day now, he is expected to file the third in a series of lawsuits seeking reimbursement from the federal government for the state’s cost of serving illegal immigrants. The two previous suits on health care and prison costs were filed months ago; this one, focused on education costs, will be submitted just as school is starting and Brown is criticizing the governor for his record on education issues.

When Wilson does campaign overtly, it usually is to raise money. He has nine fund-raisers scheduled for this month, according to campaign officials, including five outside Sacramento. He raised a reported $700,000 in Santa Monica on Monday at an event featuring former President George Bush.

The governor’s dual lives as public official and partisan campaigner are coordinated by his office and campaign staffs, which, though housed in separate buildings, often work together as if they are a single operation. One reason for that cohesiveness is that 15 of Wilson’s former government aides have recently left the employ of the taxpayers to work in his campaign.

Bob Mulholland, an adviser to the California Democratic Party, contends that Wilson, more than any other recent chief executive, has padded his government payroll with political veterans, tiding them over with tax dollars so they would be available to work on his reelection campaign.

Among them, the 15 former Administration employees now working for the campaign collected nearly $1.5 million in taxpayer-financed salaries over the past four years, according to the governor’s office.

By contrast, Brown’s campaign staff includes just two former employees of her treasurer’s staff--senior adviser Michael Reese and Deputy Press Secretary Jennifer Openshaw, both of whom worked for the treasurer’s press office.

“While Wilson’s been cutting teachers and cutting state employees, he’s been hiring political hacks at the best salaries,” Mulholland said. “Now in the last two months, they’ve been shifted over to the campaign. They should have been paid by the campaign all along.”

Among those who made the switch are two seasoned political consultants--Joe Rodota and Joe Shumate, who served stints at the highest levels of Wilson’s state operation before heading over to work on his campaign.

In addition, the governor’s former deputy scheduling secretary is now in charge of scheduling for the campaign, and his chief speech writer now writes his campaign addresses.

The considerable overlap allows Wilson to present a clear, consistent message. This week, for example, the campaign released a new commercial on illegal immigration at almost the same moment that the governor’s office was publishing a new study portraying illegal immigrants as a drain on the treasury.

The connections also make it easier for the Wilson campaign to respond quickly to any charge Brown might level.

Campaign Press Secretary Dan Schnur, formerly communications director on Wilson’s government staff, said the campaign’s research team has spent weeks examining the governor’s record with the zeal of an opponent, not only documenting his strengths but spotting weaknesses they expect Brown to exploit.

That research team is directed by Sidonie Squier, who worked until recently writing speeches in the governor’s office, and includes a former member of Wilson’s appointments staff and another who worked in the governor’s office of planning and research.

The campaign researchers, moreover, get an assist from the governor’s taxpayer-financed press office, which has produced booklike packets documenting Wilson’s record on immigration, crime, welfare, economic growth and other issues.

Wilson staffers maintain that the operation bends over backward to avoid billing the state for any activity that could be considered political. All of the governor’s travel costs, for example, come out of campaign funds.

Political experts from both parties interviewed by The Times said they see nothing wrong with Wilson maximizing the power of his office to win reelection.

Democratic consultant Richie Ross, who is not involved in the governor’s race, said Wilson is just doing his job when he tries to get as much attention as possible for signing a bill he has advocated in the Legislature.

“Incumbents do that,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making policy in public venues. Certainly his failures are equally as public.”

Steven Merksamer, who was chief of staff in Gov. George Deukmejian’s office during the 1986 campaign and is a member of a law firm that advises Wilson’s campaign, said public employees are free to defend the record of the sitting governor as long as they do not perform purely political tasks--such as raising money--on state time.

“If your opponent is questioning your budget numbers and your numbers come from the Department of Finance, the department has a duty to defend those numbers,” Merksamer said. “That’s not a political act. That’s their job.”

But Glazer, Brown’s adviser, maintains that Wilson should use his campaign, not his tax-supported office, to respond to his opponent’s criticism.

“This is a campaign against Pete Wilson, Pete Wilson’s leadership, Pete Wilson’s decisions, Pete Wilson’s effectiveness,” Glazer said. “The person who should respond to that is Pete Wilson.