Hurt by His Own Whisper Campaign

The governor seems in agony. He certainly is frustrated. He is sitting at a table, leaning into a tape recorder and straining to speak in raspy whispers between long sips of warm water.

Doctors’ orders--no irritating liquids. No coffee. Forget soft drinks. Don’t even think about booze. “That would at least make life tolerable,” Pete Wilson says, and he isn’t smiling. “I’ll tell ya, it’s hell going to cocktail parties when you can’t talk or drink.”

The reason Wilson can’t talk beyond a faint croak is because he violated other doctors’ orders after throat surgery more than three weeks ago. Give it a rest, they said of his voice box. But try telling a politician not to talk, especially a high-adrenaline Marine who’s running for President while trying to run a big state government. Wilson began talking as they rolled him out on the gurney.

So the vocal cord, where they cut away the benign nodule that was causing his voice to crack embarrassingly, hasn’t healed. At least that’s the presumed reason. There’s no sign of any permanent damage from the surgery, doctors say. He’ll heal completely--when he just stops talking.

“It’s getting better,” Wilson says. “I’ll tell you what happens: In the morning when I get up, that’s when I can tell it’s getting better. But it doesn’t take very much talk before it deteriorates and starts to sound like this.”

There’s no pain, he says. It’s just uncomfortable, like a lump.

“The surgeons said it might take three days (to heal),” he recalls. “Why the hell they told me that I don’t know. I’m told by most people it takes from two to four weeks.”

So why didn’t he take off a couple of weeks instead of, among other things, giving talks to political contributors and testifying before the House Budget Committee in Washington? “We had important things scheduled,” he insists. “But I may have to (take time off).”

This was late last Friday and as the governor sat in his office, he also disclosed that while in Washington he had picked up intestinal flu and a body rash.

“We had really planned to scrub the weekend until this thing broke. Obviously that shot today.”

*

This thing is the disclosure that 17 years ago, Wilson and his then-wife employed a Mexican part-time maid who may well have been an illegal immigrant and, for sure, they did not pay her Social Security taxes.

The governor wisely held a rare news conference Friday to tell his side, but he sounded like a man talking from 100 feet under water.

Back then, he noted, it was not illegal to hire an undocumented worker, and his ex-wife just assumed the woman had all her papers. Not paying the taxes was “a serious dereliction,” but it also was an inadvertent oversight. And he’ll now pay whatever he owes--an estimated $500 in taxes plus $2,500 in interest and penalties.

The governor presents a fat target because he led the fight last year for passage of Proposition 187. Predictably, his liberal critics and political rivals immediately pounced.

“Live by illegal aliens, die by illegal aliens,” cracked an adviser to Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). Railed state Democratic Chairman Bill Press, virtually hyperventilating: “Wilson is not only a hypocrite, he’s not only a liar, he is somebody who has broken the law. And we want to be sure Pete Wilson is brought to justice.”

But Republican analyst Mary Matalin probably gave the best summation: “It’s a mosquito on an elephant’s butt.”

*

This story isn’t finished--the digging continues--but based on what the public sees now, it’s probably saying, “So what?” At least that likely is the reaction of people who would consider voting for Pete Wilson.

These voters, especially the Republicans who will determine Wilson’s future, likely regard what he did as an ancient, honest mistake with no relevance to 187. In the 1970s, most people believed household help to be exempt from employee taxes. Even today, whether a part-time maid is an employee or an exempt “independent contractor” often turns on whether she brings her own mop and broom.

Wilson has a lot worse political problems--his broken promise not to run and, among conservatives, his big tax increase and support for abortion rights and gun control.

Where “maidgate” is most likely to hurt him is among party leaders in key primary states. These political players may see this as further evidence that the much-heralded Californian doesn’t have his stuff together, that his candidacy isn’t matching the national media hype.

A scratchy, inaudible voice doesn’t help.

In big league sports, they have the DL--the disabled list. Wilson should go on the DL and stop trying to play hurt. Listen to the docs. Sit out awhile and heal. Get back in the game when he’s 100%, when he can go to the party and talk.