Pete’s Pickle: You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Speaking to a business lobby last week, Gov. Pete Wilson displayed the conflict in goals that is at the heart of his hesitation about running for President.

And, unintentionally, he echoed the reason why many California Republicans insist he should not run.

“Our state is at a crossroads,” he told the California Taxpayers Assn. “We have got to bring about change. . . . We’ve got to put an end to lawsuit abuse . . . lift a heavy, heavy regulatory burden that has strangled California’s job market. . . . There is much more to do.”

“I’m committed,” he proclaimed, “to doing everything that is necessary to deliver tax relief this year. This is not simply a throwaway line in a State of the State message. It is essential to California’s future.”

Wilson is committed to doing everything, apparently, except the one thing that really is necessary in order for him to deliver a significant tax cut or any other “essential” item from his long list of unfinished business. And that is to stay in California and work full time at the job he was reelected to last November. Instead, intimates hint he soon will overcome his hesitation and leap into the presidential race.

There is a contradiction in the governor’s professed determination to accomplish great deeds in a second term and his seemingly irresistible urge to run for President, because these aims clearly are in conflict.

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Major “reforms” in California education, insurance and welfare--other proposals Wilson unveiled with a great flourish during his inaugural week in January--have little chance of passing a fractured Legislature without his aggressive, undivided attention.

It is fantasy to think he can cajole legislators and create alliances in the state Capitol while campaigning across the continent and raising $20 million-plus for a 1996 presidential race. It’s also delusionary to believe a relatively little-known Western governor can win early primaries in the East without working hard at it this year--that he can run without sweating.

As a presidential contender, Wilson would be even more distracted from Sacramento next year. It is plausible that if he survived the primaries and won the Republican nomination--or even accepted No. 2 on the ticket--his clout would be so enhanced legislators eagerly would curry his favor. But it also is possible that Democrats, not wishing to provide him campaign bragging points, would bury his prized bills.

Win or lose, Wilson’s opportunity for gubernatorial achievement probably would fade after 1996. Conceivably, his political stock could be boosted by a well-run but losing race for the nomination, or by distinguishing himself as a running mate on a failed ticket. But he’d still be a lame duck governor nearing the end of his final term and, more likely, be viewed as a fallen star.

If he won, of course, he’d have to turn over his office to Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, a symbol of the “tax and spend crowd” that Wilson loves to hate.

It’s a notion “that I can barely tolerate,” Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren told reporters last week. “I’d like to see (Wilson) remain as governor.”

Wilson may back a ballot measure to require a special election if the governor’s office is vacated. But this would be less a serious effort to change the law than a rationale for running.

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Lungren has a personal agenda: It would be tougher for him to run for governor in 1998 if Davis were the incumbent. But he and other Republicans also have a good point: Wilson repeatedly promised last year to serve a full term.

Sam Bamieh, a San Mateo investor who was one of his top fund-raisers, told reporters: “We spent a hell of a lot of time and money to elect Pete Wilson. Gray Davis is to the left of Kathleen Brown. . . . He said he’s not going to run for President, then he’s going to run. That’s not serving the state too well.” Bamieh has joined the finance team of former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.

Other longtime Wilson backers express similar sentiments privately.

“Business types do not want him to run,” said one. “But if he does, they’ll have to support him. The governor’s office is putting a lot of pressure on people, encouraging them to urge Pete to run. . . . And you wonder why the public is contemptuous of politics.”

Wilson’s strategists reportedly have given him all the political data he needs to make a final decision. What’s holding him up is trying to figure out how he can both effectively run America’s biggest state and run for President.

He can’t and shouldn’t bother to try. If he runs, it should be at full speed. In presidential politics--as Vince Lombardi once said of football--winning is “the only thing.”