NEWS ANALYSIS : Bush Gets Blunt Warning About California Chances : Campaign: GOP leaders say he risks defeat unless he persuades voters on his plan to revive the economy.

By BILL STALL

Jan. 31, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

Anxious and fractured California Republicans, led by a beleaguered Gov. Pete Wilson, are bluntly warning President Bush’s campaign leaders that they risk losing the state to the Democrats in 1992 for the first time in three decades.

While Republican leaders believe that Bush helped his sagging California political fortunes this week with his State of the Union address and budget incentives, key GOP strategists said Thursday that the success of the Bush campaign hinges on whether Bush can persuade voters that he has a credible plan to revive the economy. Should the recession continue into the fall, there may be no strategy capable of winning Bush a majority of the state’s voters, some believe.

“Are we in very serious danger of losing California? Absolutely,” said Steve Merksamer, an influential Republican strategist and former Gov. George Deukmejian’s first chief of staff.

Under the best of circumstances, California never has been a very good state for Bush, GOP officials acknowledge. For years, California has been owned by Ronald Reagan, whom Bush served as vice president. In 1988, with the state’s defense and aerospace employment at its peak and the real estate market at fever pitch, Bush carried California over Democrat Michael S. Dukakis by only 353,000 votes out of more than 10 million cast.

“I really don’t know why it is,” said Stuart Spencer, the political strategist who guided Reagan to victories as California governor and President. “It could be a chemistry thing. It seems to me a lot of people in the Administration don’t understand California.

“In four years of any presidency, you get breaks and you get downers,” Spencer added. “Reagan had all his downers at the front end. Bush got all his breaks at the front end and the downers now. That will make a real horse race out of it.”

The loss of California could cost Bush his presidency. The Golden State will have a bonanza of 54 electoral votes this November, fully one-fifth of the 270 needed to be an Electoral College winner.

An unsuccessful Bush California campaign also could jeopardize Republican chances of capturing the state’s two U.S. Senate seats on the ballot this year and of making inroads against the Democratic majority in the state’s expanded 52-member U.S. House delegation.

Merksamer, a Sacramento lawyer, said Bush’s initiatives this week constitute “a very good first step.”

Merksamer added: “I wish quite candidly that the White House would have addressed these issues earlier. I’m just thankful they’ve addressed them now.”

Then he asked rhetorically: “Is this campaign going to be very hard-fought? Absolutely.

“Are we in very serious danger of losing California? Absolutely.

“Do I think the President ultimately will win California? Yes, I do.”

Democrats sampled Thursday by The Times said that Bush failed to set out a bold vision for America in his State of the Union address and did not help himself much with this week’s actions. They were not willing, however, to begin counting their 54 electoral votes.

Former Democratic National Chairman Charles T. Manatt, a Century City lawyer, gave Bush good marks on the presentation of his address to Congress on Wednesday night, but said Bush suffered from the overly heightened expectations that Bush himself raised beforehand about possible sweeping action to boost the economy.

On balance, Manatt said, “I don’t think he helped himself at all.”

Tony Podesta, who managed Dukakis’ campaign in California, said of Bush’s speech: “I can’t imagine that by tomorrow anyone will be talking about it.”

Podesta added: “There’s a sense that Bush doesn’t really know what to do when it comes to education and economics and dealing with Japan. If the future of California is in the Pacific Rim, the future of California is not in begging for trade concessions.”

Wilson headed to Washington Thursday in part for a round of meetings with Bush campaign officials, including Chairman Robert A. Mosbacher, to discuss organization of Bush’s California operation. Wilson associates, speaking on background, said one of his messages was that a lot of work needs to be done if Bush expects to carry California this fall.

“There’s a lot of frustration,” one Wilson insider said. “The Republican base is very pessimistic. They are starting to question their own Republican leanings.”

The California Poll reported last week that a majority of Californians sampled said they were not inclined to support Bush this year. For the first time in the Bush presidency, a majority of Californians rated Bush’s job performance negatively, said poll director Mervin Field.

Wilson is also facing his share of voter discontent. Field’s poll found that Wilson’s job performance rating was lower than his three predecessors at the end of their first year, including Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.

Both Wilson and Bush have been sharply criticized by GOP conservatives for raising taxes. Tough primary battles between moderates and conservatives for the two Senate seats have emphasized party fractures.

John Brennan, director of The Los Angeles Times Poll, said this election will be unique in modern California history if the recession continues.

“Candidates are not used to running in California on the economy,” said Brennan.

Indeed, Podesta said the presidential campaign issues in California will be dramatically different than in 1988, when he had to defend Dukakis against charges of being soft on crime and a hypocrite on the environment.

“No one is going to be worrying about Willie Horton and Boston Harbor and offshore oil,” said Podesta, who now is an independent political strategist based in Washington.

“I think Californians are not used to lean times,” Podesta added. “Since people started coming to California in the Great Depression, it was the land of opportunity. This is the first election in which Californians are going to need to confront the possibility of a shrinking pie.

“That makes the political dynamic very different and makes the bread-and-butter issues much more substantial,” Podesta said.

The last Democrat to carry California was Lyndon B. Johnson in his landslide 1964 victory over Barry Goldwater.

One Republican who thought Bush had begun to turn the tide of disillusion among Republicans in California was Larry Thomas, vice president of the Irvine Co. of Irvine and a former aide to Wilson, Deukmejian and Bush.

As Bush made his speech and floated his tax initiatives, Thomas was touring California with Mosbacher to visit important Bush financial backers in preparation for a February fund-raising tour during which Bush hopes to raise $2 million.

“Those crowds were really pumped both by the performance and by the substance of it,” Thomas said. “It’s one measurement that his financial base remains intact. And while there certainly is a sense of discontent among the financial base for what the economy has done, it has not translated into any widespread defections or decisions not to play.”