Wilson Urges Talk Radio to Shun Violence : Politics: Shows have a big impact, he says, and should stress peaceful ways to make changes.

California Gov. Pete Wilson told an audience of radio talk show hosts Friday that they should urge political participation, not violence, as a solution to problems.

Without referring to him by name, Wilson said it was wrong for G. Gordon Liddy, who went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, to have suggested recently on his national radio program that federal law enforcement agents might be targets for violence.

“I don’t see a great deal of difference in our condemnation of gangsta rap--that glamorizes violence against women and the killing of cops--and doing it on a talk show,” Wilson said at the start of a three-day campaign tour to promote his presidential bid.

“The best [talk show hosts] don’t do it by preaching to someone to take up arms,” Wilson said. “They urge [listeners] to the political process and to make change, significant change, in a peaceful way--as frustrating as that can be.”

Speaking at a convention of the National Assn. of Radio Talk Show Hosts, Wilson joined a panel that was asked to consider some of the questions triggered by the industry’s growing influence in American politics. The panelists, including Los Angeles attorney and commentator Gloria Allred, were asked whether talk radio is entertainment or journalism, and whether it reflects or influences politics.

Wilson suggested that talk radio has been so influential in California that last year it pressured the state Legislature into passing more than a dozen anti-crime bills that had long been stalled.

“I have seen in California that talk radio can be a force that galvanizes as well as expresses public opinion to produce change,” Wilson said. “Last year, radio waves in the state of California crackled with voices that were insisting the state that has had some of the most dangerously lenient criminal laws in the nation give people the adequate protection they were entitled to.”

Wilson also hopes the talk shows will provide a forum for him to reach national voters. After his speech, he gave several interviews to radio stations from throughout the country that were broadcasting from the convention.

Later in the day, Wilson traveled to Denver, where he told a Republican audience that he supports Colorado’s proposed ballot measure to roll back affirmative action laws. Wilson has endorsed a similar measure that is expected to be on the ballot in California next year.

Today, Wilson travels to New Hampshire, where he will spend two days appealing to voters who will decide the nation’s first primary next February.