Frustrated Wilson Troops Say His Campaign Is Adrift : Politics: Recent tactical moves are seen as missteps, signs of weakness. Supporters fear funds will dry up.

By DAVE LESHER

Sept. 16, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SACRAMENTO — Frustrated and increasingly impatient, supporters of Gov. Pete Wilson’s presidential campaign called headquarters from around the country this week with a warning: Time is running out for him to demonstrate that he is a serious contender for the White House.

“The campaign seems disorganized, it seems confused with what it wants to do,” groused a Wilson supporter in New York. “It is turning off its natural base and if they don’t get their act together soon, he’ll be history. We’ve all heard that he can pull a rabbit out of a hat at 11:59. Well, it’s 11:30.”

An internal campaign memo obtained by The Times told of another exasperated supporter who called a field office to plead: “What the hell’s wrong with Pete Wilson?”

Like Chicago Cubs fans, Wilson’s troops have been told for months that their team will one day overcome a plethora of ominous signs--bad poll ratings, campaign missteps, dismissive pundits and negative news reports. But this week, the impatience bubbled over as Wilson’s backers increasingly worried that the latest setbacks were self-inflicted.

Campaign officials had hoped for an acceptance of their decision on Monday to bypass an uphill fight in Iowa’s February caucuses to focus on early primaries in the Northeast, which they presume will be more Wilson-friendly. But in the second-guessing that followed the announcement, aides privately conceded that the idea backfired--both friends and foes interpreted Wilson’s shying away from an important fight as a sign of weakness in a campaign already perceived to be struggling.

Two days after closing the office in Iowa, the campaign fueled rumors that it is dangerously low on money by confirming that Chairman Craig Fuller has offered to forgo his salary. Campaign officials added that Fuller will move from Sacramento to a new office in Washington, in part to step up his fund-raising duties.

Insiders said the handling of announcements regarding Iowa and Fuller has “been the subject of much internal debate” this week. But the greatest concern was whether the bad news would further hamper Wilson’s ability to raise money.

Wilson’s last financial report in July showed that he had raised less than $4 million, about $2 million short of what the campaign had publicly predicted. Today, aides acknowledge the campaign is still behind its fund-raising schedule and they no longer expect to have near the $20-million bank account they had predicted by year’s end.

Campaign manager George Gorton said this week that the next finance reports, due in October, would likely show that Wilson’s fund raising is still outpaced in this quarter by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.).

That is troubling for the campaign since Dole and Gramm already had a major head start over Wilson on fund raising, and a third-place finish in this quarter’s money race will leave him further behind.

Wilson aides worked this week to prevent a fund-raising slowdown by seeking to reassure their backers. But supporters said it’s too early to predict the fallout from the latest doses of bad news.

“I got an immediate fax with an explanation” after the Iowa announcement, said Robert Naylor, a former California Republican Party chairman and a Wilson fund-raiser. “Whether it has any impact on future donors, we’ll find out in a hurry.”

Naylor is optimistic, but other California Republicans warned that Wilson’s presidential rivals will do all they can to exploit the governor’s recent problems and try to shake the confidence of his supporters.

“Right now, you know people are talking to every single Wilson supporter” and spreading rumors of collapse--”telling them Wilson is closing up shop in Vermont and in Massachusetts and he just bought a house in San Diego so he’s obviously not planning to win,” said California GOP consultant Sal Russo. “The spin game is going to be going full speed ahead and he’ll pay a price for that, no question about it.”

Newport Beach developer Buck Johns is one of those GOP activists spreading the bad news about Wilson’s campaign. Johns, who backed Wilson’s statewide campaigns in the past but is helping Gramm’s bid for President, said he distributed copies of a Los Angeles Times poll this week that found Wilson’s support in California is at a near-record low.

“The word ‘plummet’ was very prominent in that headline,” Johns said. “We faxed that all around.”

Despite his efforts, Johns said he believes the governor will eventually raise the money he needs to be a credible candidate. “He’s got the apparatus and he’s got every fund-raiser [in California] tied up,” Johns said. “I just have to feel that in the end he’ll be able to raise the money. We’ve got 30 million people [in California] and, even if he loses, he’s still going to be the governor.”

Other GOP activists predicted Wilson could expect a significant cash flow if his campaign gains some momentum.

Doy Henley, president of California’s most lucrative group of political donors, the Orange County Lincoln Club, said: “Right now, out of our 350 members . . . the huge majority is waiting to see what happens. I think they’re waiting for a breakout.”

Other GOP officials said Wilson’s campaign is under pressure to perform soon because it is failing two of the chief reasons that gave credence to his candidacy--that he could carry California and he could raise as much money as any other candidate.

“There is a frustration level that’s set in,” said one GOP activist. “Those polls have just killed him in California.”

Gorton dismissed the notion that Wilson’s campaign is having financial trouble. As evidence of the campaign’s financial integrity, Gorton said it is spending about $36,000 per week to broadcast a television commercial in New Hampshire and it expects to increase that level soon. He also said it was costly to relocate Fuller and dozens of other staff members from Sacramento to the new office in Washington, an expense that a financially strapped campaign would not undertake.

Gorton said the two campaign offices in Sacramento and Washington are intended to have separate duties, but roughly divide the size of the campaign staff in half. Since the communications and day-to-day operations will be run from Washington, however, other aides predicted that office will become the campaign’s primary command center.

Campaign officials have talked about a major relocation of the Sacramento staff ever since they concluded last June that the nation’s first primary in New Hampshire and other early contests in the Northeast represent Wilson’s best shot at the nomination.

Moving the headquarters to the East Coast, they said, would save time and money for the staff currently required to make frequent cross-country trips to the region.

Aides said the decision to close the campaign’s office in Iowa, which Wilson just opened in June, was made recently and without unanimous internal support. Wilson was in Iowa just two weeks ago on the nationwide tour that formally kicked off his campaign.