The Churning Dilemma of Pete Wilson

There is a very human drama playing out within Gov. Pete Wilson, a story familiar to anyone who ever has had the fortune and luxury of great options.

The choosing is exciting, but more than that it is agonizing. Which university to attend? Where to raise the family? Keep this job or try to move up?

It’s never simple. There are sacrifices. You weigh rewards against risks; analyze fact and fantasy.

Sit with Wilson for a while and you get a sense of the churning. He doesn’t show you the legal pad with the neat rows of pluses and minuses. Nor does he eagerly discuss the tugs and pulls. But it all seeps through.

“This is a job I’ve always wanted to do,” he says of being governor, sitting just outside his private office in the Ronald Reagan Cabinet Room.

Ah, yes, the daily reminder. Above him is a portrait of the governor who later occupied the Oval Office. Nearby is a giant bust. And in the next sentence, the present governor observes “it would be a great honor and a tremendous opportunity” to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. “There’s no question about that.”

To land that job, he says, a candidate must address the electorate’s anger with Washington. “The people are genuinely fed up with a government they see as being intrusive and unfair.” Small business people, he says, resent “the damned regulations, the red tape.” And state taxpayers, he adds, object to spending money on illegal immigrants who are a federal responsibility. “We are a proud and sovereign state--not a colony.”

And, of course, the White House is where he could correct these wrongs. “That is a fact,” Wilson says.

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But the application process is time-consuming and expensive. “A great deal of organizational effort” would be required. Plus many millions of dollars.

“A number” of big-money people already “have made hard offers” of financial support, he reports. Others also have encouraged him, but “I do tend to take with a great deal of salt conversations inside the (Washington) Beltway. There are a lot of people who are paid to flatter.”

Blessed with a broad donor base in California, Wilson indicates he could amass the bankroll needed for a flurry of primaries he sees becoming “a television shootout.” Within 34 days early next year, he calculates, 29 states will choose delegates. “It’s not the endless trudging through the snows, one (primary) after another. It’s compressed.”

Wilson has done some homework, but he needs more study. Several veterans of presidential politics think that for him to capture the Republican nomination, it would require both a TV shootout and a supply of snowshoes.

A great prize awaits the winner, the governor believes. “Clinton will be beaten (although) I don’t take lightly his skills as a campaigner. I have had some experience in running against people who weren’t very good at governance, but are very good at campaigning.”

With a slight grin, Wilson is comparing Clinton to Jerry Brown, the smooth-tongued former governor he once beat in a U.S. Senate race.

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Jerry Brown’s fate epitomizes the risk of running for President as a sitting governor. He ran twice, lost miserably and wound up looking foolish, spoiling a once-promising career. Legislators essentially ignored him his last years in office.

Unlike previous lame-duck governors, Wilson now has an opportunity in his second term for landmark achievement. He was rehabilitated politically by a stunning reelection victory. The state’s economy is recovering. Republicans nearly control the Legislature, and they do control Congress, which can help him implement his version of “the contract.”

But as Wilson’s heart and mind are drawn closer to the 1996 presidential race, there are early signs of a leadership vacuum in the state Capitol. Senate Republicans fear the governor’s focus is fractured. The Assembly GOP still is regrouping from a humiliating loss in the speakership fight. Democratic Speaker Willie Brown is firing at the governor with abandon.

Even Wilson, the tireless workaholic who gets by on four to five hours sleep, cannot find adequate time both to schmooze potential donors in Washington and to map strategy with GOP legislators in Sacramento; to analyze the maze of primaries and to create legislative coalitions.

At stake is the ambitious program he unveiled with great flourish six weeks ago at the time of his inaugural--plans for sweeping changes in welfare, education, environmental regulations and the legal system, plus tax cuts.

Also at stake is the job of most powerful person in the world. And Pete Wilson is one of perhaps a half-dozen people being invited to apply. These days, he is no doubt getting even less sleep.