After eight years in Sacramento -- and 33 in government -- former California Gov. Pete Wilson announced in February he was joining other Republican bigwigs as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Stanford: What do you plan to work on at Hoover?
Education reform is one area of intense interest. My administration tried to persuade the legislature to embark on even a modest program of opportunity scholarships directed at poor children in the worst of California's schools. We were unsuccessful because of the concerted opposition of the teachers' union and its allies. It's interesting, though, that the idea seems to be picking up some support in minority communities, not just in California but across the country.
After your appointment, letters ran in the Stanford Daily criticizing your stands on propositions 209 and 187. Does it worry you that you will be remembered as anti-affirmative action and anti-immigrant?
I knew when I took those stands that some people who disagreed would do so reasonably and with civility, but that many would hurl charges of racism and that those charges would be exploited to the maximum extent possible by political partisans.
What are the oddest things about being a normal citizen again?
They are all pretty superficial. For eight years, I found most of the time when I got into an automobile I got into the back seat and started reading. Somebody else was driving. Now, of course, I am navigating the freeways and streets of Los Angeles. But mostly the difference is the tempo. It's like when you're at an airport and you step onto one of those passenger conveyor belts and begin to stride briskly along. When you add your own pace to that of the conveyor belt, you begin to go at a pretty good speed. As soon as you step off that conveyor belt, you are slammed to earth because there is such a dramatic reduction in tempo. For the first couple of months, that certainly was the case.
What do you think of the Republican field for the 2000 presidential nomination?
It's going to diminish pretty rapidly. I didn't run because it became apparent to me I would be unable to raise anything like the money necessary for a credible campaign. I think there may be only two who can. One, obviously, is Steve Forbes, who can write his own check. The other is George W. Bush, who appears to have put together a very powerful fund-raising organization. I don't know that anyone else is going to be able to come up with the table stakes for so high a game.
