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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- About five months remain in the governorship of Pete Wilson, and it is all but certain he will use that time to polish a record he hopes will serve as the springboard to a successful presidential campaign.

But the odds are long against the Republican governor -- even longer than in 1995 when his ill-fated presidential campaign ended in disaster after less than a month. Then, the political pros were waiting for Wilson to jump into the race. They were looking for a moderate who could knock off Bill Clinton. Now, with the election two years away, nobody is waiting for Wilson; indeed, he is not even on the short list of the GOP's heavy hitters.

In fact, the clearest early front-runner among Republicans is Texas Gov. George Bush -- the son and namesake of former President George Bush. The younger Bush is a capable fund-raiser and is popular, and he appears to be far better positioned than Wilson for a new presidential campaign.

This means that Wilson must use the next few months to capture national attention and keep his name alive nationally after he leaves office next January.

His first and most obvious event is the signing of the state budget, a tardy $76 billion spending plan that finally emerged from the Legislature weeks after it was due. The centerpiece of the budget -- or at least the item that captured the most media attention -- is a $1.4 billion cut in the amount of money drivers pay to register their cars. Wilson hopes that the tax-cut will resonate nationally and allow him to depict himself as a crusading tax-cutter. The budget probably will be signed this week, and probably in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest media market.

Wilson's strongest political card is California's booming economy. Wilson hopes to take some measure of credit for the state's economic comeback, and while it is debatable whether any of the governor's policies played a role in the state's economic rebirth, they certainly didn't hurt it. Before Wilson took office, California was considered the nation's eighth-largest economy; eight years later, it still is.

Wilson also has hundreds of unfilled appointments in the bureaucracy, and he is likely to use those in the waning months to maximum political advantage. Moreover, he also has numerous judicial appointments he can make, and filling judgeships is one of the most important functions a governor performs. The appointments have an impact far beyond the administration of any governor.

But Wilson has negatives, too, and they are big ones.

In politics, timing is everything, Wilson's was bad in 1995; this time it's even worse.

To mount a credible campaign, he must raise money, lots of it. But with Bush and others already in the fundraising game -- even taking money, in fact, out of California -- Wilson is at a disadvantage. Potential contributors note his lackluster performance in 1995 and wonder whether they should contribute again. And the issues that he has used as the core of his political movement -- illegal immigration and anti-affirmative action, for example -- don't seem to catch fire nationally. He also suffered a loss of prestige for backing Proposition 226, a ballot initiative that sought to curb labor unions' political clout. The initiative failed, and in the process brought out a heavy organized labor vote for Democratic gubernatorial contender Gray Davis, a long time Wilson critic.

The politics of the state Capitol radiate from the governor's office, and the final months of a governor's tenure are always unpredictable. But one thing is certain: Wilson views the state Capitol as his ticket to the national stage.

What will he do?

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