Finding the Regular Guy in Wilson

The Gov. Pete Wilson we all know hardly seems the type who would spend much time listening to cryin’ songs, cheatin’ songs and fightin’ songs about mamma, lost love and prisons.

Well, maybe prisons.

But in a redneck bar, swigging beer and two-stepping?

This can’t be verified personally--because there’s some handlers’ code against ever allowing a politician to be seen by reporters as normal--but two sources insist they actually witnessed the governor having a good time and acting like a regular guy the other night.

“If he had long hair, he let it down,” says Horton Spitzer, a Yale classmate of Wilson’s who took him out on the town of Wilson, Wyo. (population 300). That’s right: Wilson in Wilson, at the foot of the Tetons, seven miles west of Jackson.

Gov. Wilson was in Jackson for a $1,000-per-plate, fund-raising dinner. There, he bumped into Spitzer, a retired local resident whom he hadn’t seen since college ROTC. “How’d you like to meet some of the real people, guys with dirt under their fingernails who push cows and build houses?” Spitzer recalls asking the governor. “There’s only one spot you can do that. It’s the only place Bill Clinton didn’t go when he was here [on vacation]. He missed the boat.”

“Let’s do it,” replied Wilson, according to Spitzer. “But you’ve got to convince my staff.”

The handlers again. But they granted permission, probably because there were no reporters around to see the candidate mingle with common folk and get into a normal conversation, maybe even--horrors--a bar argument.

Spitzer took Wilson and a small cadre of aides to the rustic, very old Stagecoach Bar--10 stools, three pool tables and, every Sunday night, the same country/Western band for 26 years.

“A good western, neighborhood, redneck bar,” Spitzer calls it. “Cowboys come in there. Real stuff. . . . I’ll take any friend of mine into ‘the Coach.’ ”

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Wilson, in khakis and an open shirt, walked in with his wife Gayle. The saloon was packed with dancers, drinkers and pool players--maybe 160 in all--according to manager Rocky Halbert, 41, who moved there 11 years ago from Newport Beach.

“I’m not sure how many people actually knew who he was, to tell you the truth,” Halbert says. “But a lot of people were trying to find out because of the Secret Service-type [CHP] guys with earpieces.”

Spitzer, in jeans and a cowboy hat, bought Wilson a light beer and gently asked the band to take a brief intermission so he could introduce the governor. “To stop that band from playing is almost like stopping the rotation of Earth,” Spitzer says. “But I prevailed.”

He introduced the candidate by emphasizing his strong suit: “I said, ‘We’re fortunate in having a special person here whose last name is the same as the town. He happens to be the governor of California. He’s now in a presidential campaign and wanted to come to Wyoming and meet all you people.’

“It was sort of like Christ walking into the temple. From that time forward, people besieged him. The bar itself was so noisy everybody sort of migrated to the parking lot, where Pete held forth.”

Every couple of songs, however, the governor would elbow his way back onto the dance floor. Says Spitzer, “Gayle’s a great country/Western dancer.”

The old college buddy thinks Wilson won some converts because “in the Western states, people still like somebody who will stand up and be counted.”

But the bar manager probably is more typical. “I’m not real familiar with him,” Halbert says. “Right now, I’m not crazy about any of the candidates, to be honest with you.”

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Wyoming is hardly a make-or-break state. It will provide just 1% of the Republican Convention delegates, with caucuses tentatively scheduled for March 23. But whether the two hours Wilson spent in the Stagecoach Bar--without benefit of an advance team or prepared text--helped him politically, it had to be good for the psyche. That and a long hike the candidate and his wife took the next morning, Labor Day.

Wilson prides himself on getting by with little sleep, perhaps four or five hours. But he pays the price with a tense demeanor, even occasional testiness. Some close to the governor think he needs more R & R, but have given up trying to convince him.

Candidates in particular--because they’re supposed to be using their brain more than brawn--should take time to cleanse the gray matter. Stand on a scenic bluff and let the breeze flow through the ears. Sit by a pool and read something besides a briefing paper, or think about what they’d really do in office.

Politicians need to study fewer polls and talk to more people; turn off the Sousa marches and listen to country-Western. Show the fun dancer, not just the tough Marine.