Feinstein No Longer the Wild Card

The occasion was a buffet dinner -- western style, cowboy boots and jeans suggested -- for the Aspen Strategy Group at the sprawling ranch of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her businessman husband, Richard Blum.

As dinner guests sipped cocktails and took in the view Tuesday evening, many had something other than scenery on their minds: Would their hostess enter California’s recall election for governor?

Surveying a meadow that serves as Feinstein’s backyard, Walter Isaacson, chief executive of the Aspen Institute, couldn’t help but remark: “This is nicer than any governor’s mansion I’ve ever seen.”

His audience chortled. But Feinstein simply smiled.

What her dinner guests didn’t know was that the prominent Democrat had decided against running for governor of California only a few hours earlier. Although she gave no hint of her choice, she had already searched her conscience, had already consulted with former President Clinton, had already written her statement saying she would not run and expressing her distaste at the carnival-like nature of the recall.

It had been a long and busy week for Feinstein, 70, who as a member of the Aspen Strategy Group had come to attend a seminar on curtailing violence in the Middle East and resolving the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. While she went about her day job with a focus noted by her fellow participants, Feinstein spent her downtime considering her options.

On Wednesday, after her office released a morning statement announcing she would not run, Feinstein talked about how she made up her mind and how she feels about the recall effort and Gov. Gray Davis’ chances.

The issue for her, she said, became a question of the heart: “Morally, ethically, is it the right thing for me to get into the race? And the only way that would be yes is if I was absolutely convinced [Davis] couldn’t make it and I’m not there.”

She said she made the decision not to run after weighing the fallout of leaving behind her work in the U.S. Senate if she won and making an honest assessment of Davis’ chances to beat the recall.

She said she was persuaded he could win a majority of the votes by several polls she evaluated, two taken early this month.

“It became clear to me that if the governor’s recall numbers were in the 60s [in favor of the recall], I did not believe that was recoverable,” she said. “The polls that I saw indicate that it is recoverable.”

Feinstein said she did not become wrapped up in calculating how her decision to enter the race or stay out of it would affect the rest of the field.

She made her decision before Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped into the race Wednesday.

“I have no comment,” she said when told of his decision. “I don’t want to say anything.”

Campaign Tenor

On Monday, she had a 45-minute phone conversation with Clinton. While she said he did not advise her on whether to run, he spoke about the tenor of the recall effort.

“I think the point he gave me was [about] the frivolity of this recall,” she said Wednesday, sitting in a lounge on the 40-acre campus of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit center that holds policy conferences for national and international leaders.

“When you have a stripper and a Bob Dole and Dan Feinstein and Larry Flynt -- if that comes home to people, how the recall actually works, people will decide that after electing a governor nine months ago with 3.5 million votes, maybe he should be entitled to serve out the rest of his term.”

There was pressure from some to get into a race that, according to polls, she could lead. As the final days before Saturday’s filing deadline ticked by, Feinstein was inundated with dozens of phone calls and e-mails, many of them from the California delegation in the House, including House Minority Leader and fellow San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi.

There were other phone calls she didn’t make or held off on returning.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan called her Monday. Only Wednesday did she try to reach Riordan, a Republican who had said he would not get into the race if Feinstein ran. He had endorsed her in past elections, and she had endorsed him. Feinstein dismissed the notion of Riordan being a factor in her decision. Nor would she speculate on his chances for becoming governor with her not on the ballot.

“That’s a hypothetical,” she said. “I’m not going to answer it at this stage.”

And although she has spoken to Davis numerous times about the recall, they did not talk as the deadline to decide neared.

“I did not want to talk to him this week,” she said. “I know what he would have to say, and I was getting all of this pressure. Of course, I’ll talk to him now. I wanted time to do my own analysis with whether I felt he could win. And I do feel he could win.”

Now she said she is prepared to help him in his effort to fight the recall.

She already has offered him advice based on her experience, telling him that marshaling the absentee votes was key to her 80% win in a 1983 effort to recall her during her first elected term as San Francisco’s mayor.

But Wednesday, she offered some thoughts on what Davis needs to project to get voters’ attention.

“I think he has to change the campaign. I don’t think this is a vast right wing conspiracy.... “ she said. “If he shows a very solid gubernatorial performance in problem solving and decision-making, in showing that he’s a governor who’s strong, compassionate and forceful and doing it in a transparent way so people can see that -- that is the way to defeat this recall.”

California’s Clout

Feinstein said she was also aware of the responsibility she carried as California’s senior senator and how the state could lose clout if she left Washington.

“I thought California would lose a seat on the Appropriations Committee, which is really key,” she said of the powerful panel on which she serves.

And she said she also considered the job she would be asked to do in Sacramento if she ran and won. She found she did not relish the prospect of taking over in the middle of a gubernatorial term.

“I’m one who takes this stuff seriously. I spend a lot of time doing my homework,” she said. “To jump right in there and be faced with 1,500 bills you have to sign within a limited amount of time, moving in a number of different areas, trying to straighten out the budget stuff ... it’s a very difficult thing to do.”

“The job of being governor isn’t glad-handing ... it’s thinking , it’s leading, it’s making hard decisions. That’s what this state needs. There’s no such thing as a caretaker for California.”

The maelstrom around Feinstein stirred curiosity among her fellow participants at the regular summer session of the Aspen Strategy Group, which attracted a rarefied group of leaders from the political, business and media worlds to discuss serious policy issues.

“There’s been a subplot here this week,” said U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) at the dinner Tuesday night. “Will she or won’t she?”

Looking out over the assembled guests, Harman addressed Feinstein directly. “I don’t want to guilt-trip you, “ she said. “I am happy with whatever decisions you make.”

From her seat at her table, Feinstein smiled and nodded. Dressed in black Versace jeans and Lucchese cowboy boots, she did not seem distracted by the decision she secretly already had made. She greeted guests at the doorstep of her ranch. She had a kiss and hug for Queen Noor of Jordan.

She made sure Brent Scowcroft, the former national security advisor who was receiving a leadership award, wasn’t caught in the glare of the bright evening light. And just minutes after guests had been seated for dinner outside, she hurried past the tables, enthusiastically urging everyone to get up and walk to the other side of the house to watch a watermelon-red sun sink in the sky.

Never did she reveal her intentions, not even with a coy remark.