Wilson Enjoys His Place in the Lead

Gov. Pete Wilson and his political strategists are in the delightful quandary of any team ahead in the fourth quarter--trying not to act cocky, but enjoying the trash talk.

Cockiness can spread complacency--among the staff, the volunteers and the money givers. Still, talking trash--pointing out the obvious, that Treasurer Kathleen Brown has fallen behind and seems to have only backward momentum--can discourage her people and depress fund raising.

Already, Wilson’s spotters who watch TV time-buys report a drop in Brown commercials. They suspect that’s because she’s having trouble raising money. In politics, as in business, investors like to back a winner.

“This is the time to keep on the pressure and run up the score,” Wilson exhorted Republicans at their state convention last Saturday. “This is going to be a great year for Republicans. We’ve got one of the best opportunities in years. . . . Voters are looking to the Republican Party because they know we are the party of change, the party that is addressing the real issues.

“I can feel it. You can feel it. I fly around the state and get off the plane and the ground crews give me this,” the governor said, flashing a thumbs-up. “I think that’s what they’re giving me.”

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So Wilson is relaxed and even showing some humor.

In the other camp, there’s the usual sense of desperation and somber atmosphere that surrounds a candidate slipping in the stretch run. There’s whining by advisers about news coverage, both lack of it and too negative.

Brown, in an interview with the Sacramento Bee, even blamed a brain drain for some of her failures. Too many Democratic strategists left California to work in the Clinton Administration, she lamented.

“I did not contemplate that level of diaspora, where California got sucked dry of a lot of raw political talent,” the candidate said. “There were people who said yes to me and then they went away. . . . I had been seduced and abandoned. I don’t think anybody’s appreciated that fact.”

Eager for TV coverage, Brown barged into the governor’s office Tuesday--cameras in tow--demanding to see Wilson so they could negotiate a debate. The governor sent word he was busy signing bills. It was the kind of campaign gimmick you’d have expected from her brother, Jerry Brown.

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As he tries to run up the score, Wilson will use his Jerry Brown Play. Wilson beat Jerry Brown in a 1982 U.S. Senate race and, with his new play, soon will be running against him again.

Wilson plans to campaign with state Sen. Cathie Wright of Simi Valley, the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor. She’s an underdog to the better-known and superior financed Democratic candidate, Controller Gray Davis. But Davis was Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial chief of staff. And Wilson’s message to voters will be: Do you really want Jerry’s sister and his top adviser running state government in the 1990s?

This play has another advantage for Wilson, his tacticians believe: Some voters who want to support a woman may choose Wright and discard Kathleen Brown. That would run up the score not only for Wilson, but for Wright.

“By Nov. 8,” says Wilson’s campaign manager George Gorton, “everybody will know that Gray Davis was Jerry Brown’s chief of staff.” When the Times Poll last checked in March, the California electorate’s impression of Jerry Brown was more unfavorable than favorable.

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There’s speculation within the GOP that if Wilson maintains his lead--it was 9 points among likely voters in the recent Times poll--he may share campaign money with other candidates. Don’t count on it. The governor isn’t that confident.

The election is more than six weeks away. He has run a near-perfect political campaign, but there’s time to fumble. His job rating still is bad. Brown could catch fire--with some issue, a grabber commercial, a well-fought debate.

And nobody really knows whether we’re in a historic Republican cycle nationally or just an ordinary one, the kind normally enjoyed by the party out of power. Many California consultants suspect the latter.

Meanwhile, this is what they see: The governor’s running away with it in rural areas. Statewide, he’s riding “a tail wind”generated by lack of enthusiasm among Democratic voters. It’s looking like a low turnout, especially among younger voters, and that will help GOP candidates. Brown is losing more white male Democrats than she can afford to. President Clinton is a drag on the Democratic ticket.

For the Wilson team, this all makes for good trash talk.