Wilson’s Staff Revs Up for Presidential Bid : Politics: Highly regarded campaign team gets off to a rough start on governor’s weeklong East Coast trip. But consultants say there’s still time to run a strong race.

Barely recovered from last year’s all-out campaign, Gov. Pete Wilson’s veteran staff has suddenly found itself scrambling to rearrange lives once again and gear up for the enormous demands of a race to win the White House.

It is a dizzying experience. Just a year ago, many thought they would soon be unemployed because it looked like their boss was going to lose his reelection bid. The roller coaster continued earlier this year when the governor launched an ambitious agenda for his second term to take advantage of Republican gains in Sacramento and Washington.

And his East Coast trip last week demonstrated that, at least for the time being, some of the governor’s horses still have not caught up with his cart.

Wilson returned Thursday from a weeklong trip to Washington, New Hampshire, Boston, New York and New Jersey that began a day after he publicly launched an exploratory campaign for the White House. The trip included a series of private meetings and news conferences aimed at the presidential race, as well as three fund-raisers to help pay off a debt left over from his race last year.

But the infant presidential campaign was so unprepared that Wilson’s communications director was put in the awkward position of trying to persuade California reporters not to follow the governor and write stories about his latest ambition.

The hastily prepared schedule also prevented the governor from taking full advantage of a national press corps hungry to write about the latest entry in the presidential sweepstakes. Even so, a rough start probably will have little effect on Wilson’s chances of winning the White House, political observers said.

With nearly a year before voting starts in the presidential race, there is plenty of time to prepare, especially for a staff as seasoned as Wilson’s. The governor’s campaign team has developed a high-caliber reputation after four consecutive statewide victories--two for U.S. Senate and two for governor.

“This is a marathon, and when you get down to February, it’s like the end of the marathon when you start the sprint,” said Ken Khachigian, a California Republican political consultant. “I don’t know which way this is going to go, and there’s no genius out there who does, because New England is littered with people who made predictions in early primaries.”

But Wilson’s rocky start does underscore the Gargantuan effort still needed to prepare him for a national campaign.

Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, one of Wilson’s chief Republican rivals, has been putting together his presidential campaign for more than three years. And Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), the consensus front-runner, has had several months to activate the political infrastructure that he developed during three previous national campaigns.

As a result, Gramm has already hired a paid staff of about 65 people in five states and has built a bank account worth about $16.7 million in contributions and federal matching funds. Dole has locked up many of the most prominent Republican endorsements from states with early presidential contests, such as Iowa, New Hampshire and New York.

Wilson steps into the presidential race with the expectation that he will be the toughest competition for Dole and Gramm. Political observers figure that his California base is a powerful asset, and his fund-raising record is the best of any living politician.

In contrast with his opponents, Wilson’s campaign opens still trying to pay off a debt from last year’s race and a skeleton crew of barely half a dozen people, mostly borrowed at the last minute from other jobs.

Wilson strategists figured that there wasn’t time to do more before getting into the race, even with the voting more than 10 months away.

The timing “is all speculative, but my advice (to Wilson) was that you ought to make this decision by the end of the month at the latest,” said George Gorton, the governor’s chief strategist. “It was just a feeling that you need time to raise money, and every month that goes by is a month you don’t have. Second, a lot of people were getting committed” to other campaigns.

Wilson told his closest advisers barely two weeks ago that he wanted to run for the White House. The news set off a scramble among his most trusted staffers to prepare for his entry.

The task was complicated by a previously scheduled trip to Washington, Boston and New York for a series of private fund-raisers intended to help pay off a debt of about $1.5 million from last year’s campaign.

Quickly, Wilson aides tried to make the trip appear at least partly presidential. Eventually it became “a hybrid,” said Dan Schnur, Wilson’s former press secretary who has taken time away from his new job teaching at UC Berkeley to help the fledgling campaign.

When Wilson announced his exploratory committee for the White House campaign late last week, the lack of preparation was clear.

Leslie Goodman, the governor’s communications director, told reporters that Wilson had not yet scheduled any definite public events in the following week. She also downplayed the chances that he would make an appearance in New Hampshire.

By Sunday, however, the campaign had scheduled appearances for Wilson on three national TV talk shows, and it planned for a New Hampshire visit on Tuesday. Later, news conferences were added to the schedule with Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld in Boston; Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York, and Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey.

Much of the trip remained private. The governor held numerous meetings that aides declined to discuss. Officials would not identify the hosts or locations of three fund-raisers that the governor attended. And they declined to identify the owner of a private plane that Wilson used to shuttle around the Northeast.

Schnur said the entire cost of the trip was paid by the presidential exploratory committee.

Wilson and his staff hailed the trip as a success. They said the news conferences gave Wilson prominent media exposure in key places such as New Hampshire and New York.

“I don’t think they needed to show much more than they did--to, in effect, introduce (the governor) to people back there,” Khachigian said.

But the effort clearly could have accomplished more with additional time and preparation.

Wilson aides emphasized that the governor only announced an exploratory committee and that his effort should not be judged as if it were a full-fledged campaign. Indeed, the description of the governor’s status changed depending on the circumstance.

Wilson left little doubt that he plans to make an official declaration of his candidacy, promising voters in New Hampshire and New York that he would be there often. By late last week, he was describing his trip as the first of his presidential campaign.

“What I’ve accomplished is a first visit as a candidate to some precincts that I expect to spend a great deal of time in,” Wilson said Wednesday in New Jersey. “This trip has . . . allowed some people who have not had the opportunity before to see me, hear me, and to learn about why I am seeking the office and what I think I can do.”

Wilson did not demonstrate any support in the East. There were no cheering crowds at his events, and the Republicans who joined him at news conferences all remain uncommitted in the presidential race.

Gorton said, however, that Wilson learned in private meetings that there is still a significant pool of uncommitted Republican leaders in both New Hampshire and New York. That is important because his top rivals have worked hard to lock up endorsements.

Dole’s campaign welcomed Wilson to New Hampshire on Tuesday by releasing the news that it had recruited one of the state’s U.S. senators, Judd Gregg. Dole also has the backing of former New Hampshire Sen. Warren B. Rudman and a number of prominent state leaders.

Gramm has enlisted the state’s other U.S. senator, Republican Robert C. Smith. Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, television commentator Patrick J. Buchanan and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter are also in the state recruiting supporters.

Wilson’s campaign, by contrast, could not identify a New Hampshire supporter who could speak about the governor’s chances of election in the state.

In New York, Wilson saw similar obstacles to his campaign.

Dole already has won the support of most major Republican leaders there, including Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato and Gov. George Pataki. The state Republican Party chairman has declared that he will work to keep challengers to Dole off the state’s primary ballot.

Wilson faces a major challenge in conducting the kind of in-person campaign that New Hampshire Republicans expect.

But he insisted that he could handle both the campaign and his gubernatorial duties.