Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson (born 1933) was a mayor of San Diego, a U.S. Senator from California, and then Governor of California. He was a liberal Republican who, in the views of some, played a role in destroying the once-energetic conservative movement there and opening the door to political domination by liberals and massive emigration of conservatives and others from California to the neighboring states of Nevada and Arizona.

He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1996 and endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president in 2007.

His primary conservative accomplishment -- perhaps his only such accomplishment -- was appointing Janice Rogers Brown to the California Supreme Court and ignoring liberal attempts to smear her as somehow unqualified. Judge Brown was subsequently appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a federal appellate judge on the D.C. Circuit.