Wilson Scolds GOP for Lack of Political Courage

RENO —  Fueling speculation about his own presidential aspirations, Gov. Pete Wilson scolded fellow Republicans on Saturday for not showing the kind of political courage that he said is necessary to regain the White House in 2000.

Wilson complained to activists attending the Western States Republican Leadership Conference that the party spent too much time during the last campaign on its internal differences--particularly the fight over abortion.

Now, he said, he worries that the GOP is “determined” to repeat some of the same mistakes because it has lost passion for its ideas and seems willing to stake its hopes for 2000 on the chance that scandals will prove fatal to Democratic hopes of keeping the presidency.

“Rather than pressing a Republican agenda for change, many clearly prefer a holding pattern that brings to mind both the similar inertia of the post-Thatcher Conservatives in Britain and their present minority status,” Wilson said.

“In 1995 . . . candidate after candidate--even the [GOP] party chairman [Haley Barbour]--offered little more than pointed barbs at Bill Clinton or, more sadly, pointed out each others’ [mistakes],” he continued. “We must learn that campaigns are never won by waiting for the other side to collapse under the weight of its own scandals.”

Wilson’s speech was something of an initial tiptoe into the unofficial field of 2000 presidential candidates who have already begun a national tour to places such as this twice-yearly gathering of activists from 15 Western states.

Wilson, who got a polite response from a conservative audience, spoke immediately before one presidential hopeful, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, and a day after House Speaker Newt Gingrich rallied the same audience.

During an interview Saturday on his charter plane returning to Sacramento, the governor affirmed his interest in making a second try at the White House after an embarrassingly brief bid in 1995. But he insisted that he is not an active candidate because he is too busy with his current job.

Still, as California’s economy has soared lately and the Legislature has produced landmark achievements, Wilson aides have increasingly encouraged speculation about a presidential bid.

His comments Saturday in Reno also amounted to his own instructions for winning the White House. And, hinting at a national appeal, he offered his work in California as an example of what the party will need.

“Many times it is said that California is America’s bellwether,” Wilson told the audience of about 300. “We are defining America’s future. Let me correct that: Republican ideas are defining California’s future and, God willing, the change that has swept across my state will sweep across this country in the not-too-distant future.”

The example Wilson gave was his support for California’s successful but highly controversial ballot propositions against illegal immigration and affirmative action. He said the campaign for those issues is evidence of the political courage that is needed in the GOP.

“Proposition 187 was the loudest, clearest protest against government abuse of power since the Boston Tea Party,” Wilson said. “Proposition 209 was a victory for fairness--a rejection of racial and gender discrimination. Both were bitterly opposed by liberal politicians and a barrage of liberal media. We did not win by maintaining a cautious holding pattern.”

The speech illustrated the difficult--some believe impossible--political diplomacy that Wilson would require to meld a national coalition of abortion rights supporters and affirmative action opponents. His similar attempts in the past have often been lonely causes.

Last year, Wilson pleaded with abortion opponents to drop their insistence on a plank in the national party’s platform that calls for a constitutional amendment to ban the medical procedure. When he was ignored, the governor angered many GOP insiders by threatening a bruising fight on the convention floor to have the plank removed.

On Saturday, Wilson said he was trying to head off the same showdown in 2000 by appealing again for both sides to drop the issue.

“There is so much we agree upon, yet we have been talking past each other for more than 20 years, engaging in a debate that has given aid and comfort to the Democratic Party while failing to prevent a single abortion,” he said. “I respectfully propose that we end this costly and unproductive debate.”

Wilson’s support for the controversial battles against illegal immigration and affirmative action has also made him--at times--an isolated figure in the national Republican family.

Last year, with little success, he strongly encouraged GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole’s campaign to more heartily embrace Proposition 209 as a Republican moral value as well as a political vehicle. Instead, the tepid response was reflected in concern voiced by Gingrich and vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp that the issue was racially divisive.

This year, as the California Republican Party has made an ambitious appeal to Latino voters, some have openly worried that Wilson is hurting their cause.

But on Saturday, he urged Republicans to embrace such defining issues as affirmative action as a sign that the party has the backbone to take on tough concerns.

He dismissed responsibility for the controversy surrounding the initiatives and instead blamed liberal critics for what he called misrepresenting Proposition 187 as anti-immigrant and Proposition 209 as racist.

At the same time, Wilson tried to separate his support for such issues from the negative reputation they have helped attach to him. He said Republicans need to embrace “America’s brilliant mosaic of colors and creeds and character.”

And he complained that those who support affirmative action are categorizing minorities as a class that is “underprivileged or permanently in need of public assistance.”

“We Republicans see dreamers and doers,” he said. “We refuse to accept the false and insulting stereotype of minorities as victims.”