Pete's second coming

California's forgotten governor drapes his plaid-trousered legs into a chair and, with dry humor, recalls his five years in political exile. He walked the streets unnoticed, shopped at Ralphs, waited in line at the gas station, all without security. Who needs it when you're just another guy? Occasionally, he says, someone would recognize him. "I know you," they would say. "You're the anchor on Channel 7."

Such was the obscure life of Pete Wilson. The man who is among the most successful politicians in California history was forced into the shadows after his second term ended in 1999 for having the temerity to support a state illegal-immigration proposition, 187. Voters approved it by a 59% majority, but in the strange ways of politics, Wilson became a liability. Even his own party wanted nothing to do with him, passing him over as a delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention. It was "a hard slap," says Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan newsletter "The Cook Political Report." "It doesn't get a lot worse than that. It tells you how far he fell."

Then one day last summer, Wilson's phone rang. It was an actor friend, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The deadline to file as a candidate in the recall election of Gov. Gray Davis was just a few days away. Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, wanted to talk. Wilson drove from his condo in Century City to Schwarzenegger's mansion in Brentwood. Wilson recalls the conversation. "I told him, 'I have no doubts about your abilities as a campaigner. I think you have the greatest natural gifts I've ever seen. You love it, and you're good. But you've got to ask yourself, "Do I want to do this enough to make that kind of dramatic change in my life?" Think about it over the weekend.'

"I left assuming I'd talked him out of it."

He hadn't, and thus Pete Wilson was about to be reborn. Thanks largely to Schwarzenegger's victory and his continuing reliance on Wilson as an advisor, the former governor is now "in" again. Republicans can relax and put his picture back on the wall. This August, Wilson will occupy prime real estate at the Republican National Convention. Many of his former aides now work for Schwarzenegger. And the man who fell from grace is willing to talk about it, as he did in a series of interviews for this article.