Wilson Faces Fund-Raising Test on the National Stage

When Gov. Pete Wilson began to seriously consider a campaign for the White House earlier this year, his first step was to check with the corporate leaders and business professionals who have helped make him one of the most prolific fund-raisers in the history of American politics.

He could not do it without them. And the work they have done for him in the past is one of the primary reasons Wilson’s presidential interest is taken seriously.

Since 1982, the governor’s network of financial contributors has generated more than $71 million for his four California campaigns--two for U.S. Senate and two for governor. Ronald Reagan and George Bush, after three presidential campaigns each, did not raise more.

The governor’s aides and rival GOP campaigns say they are confident that Wilson’s financial network can come through for him again. In fact, after Sens. Robert Dole of Kansas and Phil Gramm of Texas, Wilson is thought to have the best fund-raising apparatus of any Republican who has speculated about the race so far.

“I don’t think there’s a question of whether he can raise the resources,” said Gary Koops, a spokesman for Gramm’s presidential campaign.

At the same time, however, those familiar with Wilson’s financial resources say a presidential contest would put the governor’s fund-raising abilities to their greatest test ever.

“It’s all speculative,” said one GOP consultant from California. “I wouldn’t discount Wilson raising the money necessary. My feeling though is that . . . I don’t think he’ll get 100% of his gubernatorial finance team behind him.”

Some California political watchers say they do not assume Wilson can raise the money for a presidential race, even though he has a prolific background. They said he will probably find a presidential contest much different than races he has experienced so far.

For one thing, he has never had to compete for money and votes with the likes of Gramm and Dole. In fact, Wilson has frequently been a divisive element in the Republican Party and he has never had a serious GOP opponent since his first Senate race. Last year, an unknown computer magnate, Ron Unz, managed to get 34% of the GOP vote in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

As a result, other GOP presidential candidates are not conceding California’s financial bounty to the home state governor, who last week formed a committee to help him prepare for a probable presidential campaign.

Two weeks ago, Gramm and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, another GOP White House hopeful, scheduled fund-raisers in California that featured prominent Wilson supporters.

Alexander rebuked the California governor by staging a news conference in Los Angeles with Sam Bamieh, the biggest contributor to Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign. Bamieh bolted from Wilson’s camp earlier this year with a stern warning to the governor that he should not violate his promise to serve another full term in Sacramento.

And on March 17 in Newport Beach, Wilson backer and prominent developer Buck Johns chaired an event for Gramm. Johns said the event should be the biggest fundraiser for a non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate ever held in Orange County, California’s GOP bastion.

“Without question, this is Pete Wilson country,” Johns said. “But Pete’s got a difficult time in New Hampshire and Iowa and the South, where he doesn’t have a base.” Johns said the 14-1 odds a news magazine recently gave for a Wilson presidency “is more than generous.”

Another prominent GOP fund-raiser said some of Wilson’s past contributors feel differently about a Wilson presidency. He said some are also unhappy that Wilson could be succeeded in the governor’s office by a Democrat, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis.

“I think if you segmented it, there are a lot of people close to Pete who are really excited,” said the fund-raiser, a prominent Wilson loyalist. “But there are a lot of guys who say he’d leave the state to a Democrat and he was elected to be governor. A lot of business guys I talk to are saying that and these are people I used to raise money from.”

Wilson’s schedule these days is also packed with fund-raisers. He has planned at least eight events to raise money in California and on the East Coast during the last three weeks of March.

But instead of gearing up for another campaign, Wilson is furiously raising money to pay off about $2 million in debt left over from his 1994 campaign and his January inaugural gala. Wilson officials said the fund-raisers this month will help, but they do not expect the debt to be erased until the end of June.

Meanwhile, with more than $10 million already in his bank account, Gramm has a huge head start on a presidential campaign.

National presidential watchers estimate that the major candidates in next year’s Republican primary will probably need $20 million to $25 million to compete.

For Wilson, that would require a quicker fund-raising pace than anything he has known in the past. If he started this month, Wilson would have to raise more than $425,000 per week to have $20 million before the Iowa caucus kicks off the national voting schedule Feb. 12.

Previously, Wilson has usually had about two years to raise campaign funds.

“I can see how he gets to $15 million; after that, I don’t know,” said one California GOP strategist.

Another significant difficulty for a Wilson presidential campaign is that he would have to raise money under federal rules that limit individual contributions to $1,000 per person.

Wilson has become one of the nation’s biggest fund-raisers partly because he has run for governor in a state where there are no limits on the amount an individual can contribute. Last year, for example, the governor’s top four contributors were responsible for about $1 million to his campaign.

And according to figures compiled by state Senate Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), about 55% of what Wilson raised last year came from contributions of $10,000 or more. In addition, some of the large donations came from businesses, which are not allowed in federal elections.

Wilson has experience raising money under the $1,000 federal limit. When he ran for U.S. Senate in 1982, he raised about $7 million. Six years later he collected about $13 million for his 1988 reelection.

Wilson was also limited to $1,000 individual contributions for most of the 1990 governor’s campaign due to a voter-approved campaign reform measure. In mid-September, with just two months left until the election, a judge ruled the ballot measure was unconstitutional.

Since then, there have been no limits on contributions to statewide candidates in California.

Even with the limit for most of the 1990 campaign, Wilson raised almost $25 million to defeat Democrat Dianne Feinstein. That’s about the same amount he collected for his reelection last year over Democrat Kathleen Brown.

In all, Wilson has raised more than $71 million in his four California elections, a bit more than Bush collected for his three presidential campaigns in 1980, 1988 and 1992.

Bush actually spent about $90 million for his 1992 presidential campaign, but the Federal Elections Commission said only about $27 million of the total was raised by the candidate. Bush received about $10 million in federal matching funds for the primary and, upon receiving the GOP nomination, he gained another $55 million in public funding for the general election.

Federal election observers and campaign watchdog officials said former President Richard Nixon is probably the only U.S. politician to have raised more money for his campaigns than Wilson. Nixon, campaigning before federal laws limited the amount of contributions, raised about $90 million for his 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns.

Last month, in Aspen, Colo., Wilson attended a meeting in which some of the nation’s top GOP donors discussed the 1996 contest. Later, he gathered the backbone of his own fund-raising network at two private meetings in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The California meetings were called to discuss the 1994 campaign debt, but at least half a dozen people at each event also stood up to encourage a Wilson presidential campaign. Since they received warm applause and there were no negative comments, Wilson officials interpreted the response as if it was a green light to run for the White House.

“There isn’t a candidate in this race who has put together the kind of grass-roots, broad-based support network that Pete Wilson has,” said an aide to the governor.

* ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL: Pete Wilson takes first steps, sounding themes of presidential bid. A3