For Wilson, a TV-Leveled Playing Field : But California’s referendum targeting affirmative action may be his ticket nationally.

In five of the last nine presidential elections, the Republican nominee has been a Californian. In four of those five elections--1968, 1972, 1980 and 1984--the GOP won. Today, as Republicans calculate for 1996, how can they overlook California’s 54 electoral votes, the largest bloc for any state in U.S. history? And how can they resist Pete Wilson, winner of four consecutive elections in the Golden State?

If only it were it so simple for the second-term governor, currently inching his way toward a presidential run. One small problem: Gray Davis, the Democratic lieutenant governor ready to succeed him in Sacramento if Wilson goes to Washington. But Wilson’s bigger problem is that big states aren’t what they used to be. Geography has been replaced by ideology; today, vote-power grows out of the eye of a TV camera, enabling a dark horse with a smile, a sound bite and a good set of teeth to vault to prominence faster than you can say Jimmy Carter.

In the days when print predominated, New York was the big enchilada, truly the Empire State, able to lord it over the rest of the country in politics just as the Yankees did in baseball. From the Civil War through the 1950s, a New Yorker was on the national ticket in 21 of 23 presidential elections. Then, a party’s nominating convention was more than just a coronation. Bosses and delegates actually picked the ticket. Since New York had the most money as well as the most people, its incumbent governor was an automatic presidential player. Indeed, from Democrat Horatio Seymour in 1868 to Republican Tom Dewey in 1948, the Albany Statehouse was a steppingstone to a nomination. Even Dwight Eisenhower, born in Texas and reared in Kansas, went to New York after World War II to establish a political base atop New York’s 47 electoral votes.

Today, New York is down to just 33 electoral votes. Furthermore, its grip on the national political consciousness has been diffused by technology, which brings minicams and microphones to the remotest precincts in search of a new face or a hot trend. Even megastate candidates must humble themselves by crawling through the eye of the New Hampshire needle, where federal caps on primary spending limit their fund-raising advantage.

Moreover, in the media age, message counts. The nominations of Arizona’s Barry Goldwater in 1964, South Dakota’s George McGovern in 1972 and Arkansas’ Bill Clinton all attest to the triumph of television, which enabled articulate candidates from even the dinkiest states to get enough exposure to win. Their ideas were more critical to their success than electoral-college computations. Indeed, Clinton defied a cardinal rule of presidential politics, the need for a “balanced” ticket. Running mate Al Gore was from neighboring Tennessee, another small state where people talk with a twang. Yet the strong generational appeal of the all-boomer ticket came across on the tube, and that was what mattered most.

California has eclipsed New York in terms of population, but outside the realm of pop culture, the Glitter State has not inherited New York’s dominance of national life. For most Americans, California is the land of mudslides and O.J., not the launch pad for leadership. So Wilson can’t surf into the nomination; California’s population preponderance will help him little except in the unlikely event of a brokered convention--to be held in his own San Diego. Wilson can’t even take much solace in California’s grip on the GOP nomination in recent decades. After all, those five nominations went to just two men, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

So what’s next for Wilson? His record puts him to the left of the GOP’s center of gravity on taxes, abortion and gay rights, to its right on immigration and crime. But Wilson has one unique advantage: California’s celebrated referendum process can slingshot issues to national prominence. A smart pol such as Wilson can get out in front of these plebiscitary gusts, claiming that the wind of the popular will is at their back, blowing them inexorably toward the White House. The anti-illegal-immigration Proposition 187 changed the national debate last year. The anti-affirmative-action initiative is already shaking the status quo.

Wilson has not announced his candidacy. But if he does go for it, the force that will be with him is his policy platform, not his place of residence.