Commentary / PERSPECTIVES ON THE SEMI-ANNOUNCED CANDIDATE : Who Is the Real Pete Wilson? : A Career Long on Politics, Short on Principle

The warm media glow surrounding the entry of Pete Wilson into the presidential sweepstakes says more about the clay feet of the current crop of GOP hopefuls than it does about California’s governor.

Wilson is sounding good to a public starved for a moderate, pro-choice Republican. This, however, is a person who has demonstrated throughout his political career that he lacks any core beliefs.

The most obvious examples of this: Wilson’s ironclad promise during last year’s governor’s race not to run for President; his slamming the Proposition 187 door shut on illegal immigrants after having held it open for powerful agricultural and textile lobbies, not to mention his own household help; his taking up the tax-cutting torch after signing the biggest tax hike in California’s history.

But another incident really cuts to the heart of the matter. Back in 1971, Wilson rocked San Diego’s developer Establishment by running successfully for mayor on a platform of controlling then incipient suburban sprawl. Swept into office by an electorate that feared “Los Angelization,” Wilson adopted a tough and visionary growth management plan.

But a funny thing happened on Wilson’s way up the political ladder. To raise the millions necessary to run for higher office, Wilson slipped into bed with the very interests he had vowed to control. Within a few years, his growth management plan was in shambles. Worst of all, Wilson cynically dropped his opposition to a massive development in the city’s northwest. By the mid-1980s, the side effects of the suburban sprawl Wilson unleashed had reached epidemic proportions, with traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, water shortages, brown air and almost daily sewage spills into Mission Bay.

In 1986, San Diego’s new mayor asked me to help devise a plan to address this mess. I became the city’s leading growth management advocate. In 1992, I ran for mayor on virtually the same platform as Wilson had in 1971. (In what was billed as a stunning upset, I won the primary, but I was narrowly defeated in the general election by the same developer money that had helped send Wilson to the Senate.)

My personal history is relevant here because, in treading the same path that Wilson once did, I have looked into both of our souls. I can say unequivocally that there is no ethical or moral basis for what Wilson did. His abrupt abandonment of growth management at a pivotal point was simply ambition that has done incalculable damage to a city I love. Now Wilson wants to do to the country what he did to San Diego. Now this man without core beliefs wants to cynically ride a tidal wave of white male rage and anti-immigrant fervor right down the Potomac and into the White House.

How will Pete Wilson do? Just fine. Given the importance of California’s electoral votes, he’s a shoo-in for the vice presidential nomination. With Sen. Bob Dole the likely presidential nominee and a probable one-termer, that makes Wilson the front-runner in the year 2000, whether or not the Dole-Wilson ticket triumphs. In a democracy, we get the government we deserve.

The Line on Wilson

The Times sought comment on Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1996 presidential ambitions from several political figures who have had a relationship--personal or professional, friend or foe--with Wilson over the years.