Joe Garofoli,Carla Marinucci

SF Gate

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who recently campaigned with GOP former Gov. Pete Wilson as being “tough as nails” on illegal immigration, could alienate her crucial conservative base, some party members say, by declaring she’s in lockstep on the issue with her rival: former Gov. Jerry Brown.

In an opinion piece published this week in a Spanish-language publication in Southern California, Whitman wrote that there is “very little” that she disagrees with Brown on concerning the hot-button issue of illegal immigration.

While both agree that undocumented immigrants should not be allowed to get amnesty or obtain driver’s licenses, Brown’s camp says they disagree on key issues, including whether to give illegal immigrants a path to legalization, which Brown supports.

Riling conservatives

Still, Whitman’s statement has riled some conservatives to the point that they’re threatening to sit out the election – an exodus that could hamper Whitman’s chances.

“The more Meg says ‘I’m just like Jerry Brown,’ the more demoralizing it is to Republican activists,” said Mike Spence, a GOP strategist and former president of the California Republican Assembly, a grassroots conservative group that former President Ronald Reagan called “the conscience of the Republican Party.”

“When Meg Whitman’s campaign says things like that,” Spence said, “it depresses the (party’s) base.”

The group’s current president, Celeste Greig, is asking the California Republican Party to approve a resolution supporting Arizona’s new immigration law at its August convention.

Greig is “disappointed” in Whitman’s current immigration position, saying she is “worried because I hear that from a lot, a lot, a lot of people: ‘Why should I waste my vote? That’s what we did with (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger).’ ”

But in a year in which many Republican candidates nationwide are wooing Tea Party voters to expand their base, Whitman will need the votes of all the conservatives like Greig and Spence – plus some independents – to overcome the Democratic Party’s advantage of 2 million registered voters in California, analysts say.

Compounding Whitman’s dilemma is that her nuanced immigration position wedges her between Wilson, her hard-line campaign chairman, and her moderate running mate, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado.

While serving in the Assembly, Maldonado co-authored AB540, legislation to allow undocumented students to get in-state tuition, and has passionately campaigned for a path to legalization for the state’s 2 million undocumented residents. The law was signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis but overturned by a state appellate court, which said it could not supersede federal law.

In an interview Thursday, Maldonado told The Chronicle that he is sure he and Whitman are not that far apart on immigration issues.

Maldonado is particularly concerned about the tuition issue, and said he wants to have more conversations with Whitman about what he feels are a myriad of benefits in educating such immigrant students. “I think in her heart, she’s there,” he said.

If so, that would present a contradiction to Whitman’s statements in the GOP primary race and in her campaign literature, which boldly declared: “Meg will ban undocumented students from attending California’s higher education system.”

Distance from Wilson

Maldonado also appeared to be putting distance between the GOP ticket and Wilson, who supported 1994′s voter-approved Proposition 187, which would have denied public health services and public education to illegal immigrants. A federal judge later overturned the law.

“Pete Wilson is the past,” he said when asked about Whitman’s pre-primary appearances in commercials alongside Wilson. “He is not running for governor.”

Whitman’s immigration controversy stems from an opinion piece the former eBay CEO wrote this week for Eastern Group Publications, a Spanish-language newspaper chain in East Los Angeles.

After delineating her immigration position, Whitman wrote, “When we examine our positions on immigration, there is very little that Jerry Brown and I disagree on,” according to a translation of Whitman’s opinion piece. Continue reading Whitman stance on illegal immigrants riles GOP