Bush Notes Wilson Lead in Polls, Courts Senator : Underdog Makes an 11th-Hour About-Face on Several Key Issues

ORANGE — Here in Orange County, wellhead of California Republicanism, the Grand Old Party gathered Tuesday night to bid goodby to the primary election season and take measure of that curious affliction awaiting them now--the nearly 30 points that George Bush is behind.

Not behind the Democrats, but the 30 points Bush trails fellow Republican candidate, Pete Wilson, California’s junior senator.

Public opinion polls of California, including those by The Times, show Bush lagging 17 or more points behind Democratic nominee-apparent Michael S. Dukakis. At the same time, first-term Sen. Wilson is 12 or more points ahead of his opponent, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy.

Split preferences are nothing unusual in California. But a gap of this enormity between a party’s two leading standard bearers is more than a curiosity: It spells the difference between a dream and nightmare for Republicans in a state where the GOP is outnumbered by 1.5 million Democrats.

The 30-point gap is all the more strange considering the two politicians are cut and tailored from the same bolt of cloth.

Both Yale Grads

Both Bush and Wilson are born-and-bred Establishment-class Republicans, graduates of Yale. They are up-from-the-ranks office holders who began as moderates, then veered to the right during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Both are now inching back toward the center. They are both military veterans; tough on defense, more relaxed on domestic issues. Stylistically, they are ribbed for their gee-whiz enthusiasm, but as speechmakers they seem to cry out for passion. They even have the same haircuts.

“No politician in the country reminds me as much of George Bush as Pete Wilson,” said one longtime California political observer.

Republican activists argue that the gap is an early and inconsequential reflection of the fact that Wilson has been paired head-to-head with a single opponent for months and has enjoyed a massive spending advantage. At the same time, it is noted, Bush has no financial edge because of federal presidential campaign limits, and has watched Dukakis become the very embodiment of centrist politics, comfortably in the cross fire between the vice president on the right and the Rev. Jesse Jackson on the left.

“In some ways these poll numbers confirm what I’ve been saying for a long time,” said Republican state Chairman Robert W. Naylor. “When people find where Mike Dukakis stands on the issues of taxes, defense cuts, crime--issues that have been submerged so far--this thing will get a lot tighter.”

That paint-’em-liberal strategy, Naylor continued, is well along in the California Senate race. “The point is that it has been done already on McCarthy but not on Dukakis.”

Relishes Underdog Role

Bush always seems to relish the role of political underdog. Some Republicans suggest the lopsided poll standings now will invigorate the vice president just as his defeat last winter in Iowa seemed to strengthen his resolve.

“Californians have shown year after year they take each race separately. Our race hasn’t got started yet,” said Bush campaign manager Lee Atwater. “The main event starts today.”

This was a common theme at Republican headquarters. “There has been so much attention on the Democratic race, George Bush has been ignored,” said Orange County assessor Brad Jacobs.

Plainly, though, there is more than mere timing behind the 30-point gap.

Bush seemed to acknowledge as much, telling the overflow crowd at GOP election night headquarters: “I’m so proud of the way things are going for Pete. But he’s earned it--he’s earned every bit of that support.”

Wilson received lavish credit during the primary campaign, even from critics, for his success in his first term in connecting with groups of voters not typically associated with the California GOP coalition--environmentalists, Jews, the entertainment industry, among them. This has gained him not only direct support but cut into important sources of fund raising for his opponent.

Bush has not emphasized outreach to the same degree, and the results have been mixed.

A case in point is Garfield High School, the Latino-dominated East Los Angeles public school famous for motivating its students. In a speech there last month, Bush marveled at the success of some of the students in gaining admission to the nation’s best universities, and then turned to those who would not.

“That’s fine, too, and I hope we remember in this country that, even though we emphasize the value of higher learning, you don’t have to go to college to be a success. We need those people . . . who do the hard physical work of our society,” he said.

The students applauded. But they did not have the last word.

‘Let Him Shine Shoes’

“Gross insensitivity!” protested Democrat Jesse Jackson. He told students to ignore the vice president. “Let him wait tables, let him caddy, let him shine shoes. You keep going to college.”

As it turned out, the history of the 1988 campaign appears to record Bush’s Garfield visit as a gaffe and not a step toward broadening his appeal.

Then there is the growing issue of class distinction between Democrats and Republicans. Wilson has striven to combat an image as a silver-spoon elitist, while Bush has seemed oddly oblivious.

A recent California poll by Mervin Field found Dukakis scoring four times better than Bush when voters were asked which candidates cared for the concerns of average Americans. More than one-third of Californians said Bush cared only a little or not at all. A similar sounding of voter opinion, worded differently, found only 6% of the voters believing Wilson did not identify with the average person.

Still, just two nights before the California primary, Bush plunged in with the Republican elite for a private gala fund-raiser with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Holmes Tuttle. And on another of his infrequent trips here prior to that, Bush spent two of three days in California at the Rancho Mirage estate of Walter H. Annenberg, a setting so lavish it contains its own fenced-in one-family country club.

Flexible Politician

Bush has proved to be a flexible politician. When his New Hampshire campaign looked troubled back in February, Bush threw out his playbook, abandoned the imperial robes of high office, and followed the advice of New Hampshire’s popular Gov. John H. Sununu, plunging into crowds like an ordinary candidate.

Now Bush is again making some rapid-fire adjustments. Within the last 72 hours, he has openly jumped from the side of his long-cultivated friend Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, who is suffering a bout of political woes, to the lap of Wilson, who is riding high.

First, on Sunday, Bush followed Wilson’s advice and backed off support for a disputed Northern California offshore oil-drilling lease. Deukmejian had taken the side of proceeding with the lease, although reserving room to raise objections. Bush just a month ago said: “I support your governor.”

Then Bush switched to the side of Wilson, arguing for putting off the lease, at least until after the election.

Deukmejian was caught by surprise at the vice president’s sudden switch, according to one source.

Then again on Monday, Bush followed Wilson and endorsed federal legislation that is much watched by Asian-American voters in California--the bill to pay reparations to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. Deukmejian had not taken a formal position on the bill, but he has expressed “understanding” for those around him who opposed the measure, according to a spokesman.

By sidling up to Wilson, the vice president is emulating the senator in what may be an even more important area than oil drilling or ethnic politics.

Pulling Away From Reagan

And that is, being a Republican pulling away from the Reagan Administration. In both instances this week, Bush departed from Administration policy and placed himself in a national leadership role.

The payoff was quick. Within 24 hours of Bush’s statement on offshore oil drilling, Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel said the leasing of the disputed tract would be delayed until after the election of a new president.

It was as if Bush was heeding the advice of Democratic adversaries such as activist attorney Mickey Kantor.

“George Bush’s problem has been playing a very distant No. 2 to the most popular Republican in California history. He is not well known and to the extent he is known, he is perceived as a nonentity,” Kantor said. “Wilson is not well known either, but to the extent that he is, he seems to be in charge of his own political life.”