Feinstein Factor Is the Big Unknown

Through three decades in politics, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has retained the right to change her mind.

In 1971, then-San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto accused Feinstein of double-crossing him with her last-minute entry into the mayor’s race after saying she had no intention of running. She finished third.

Afterward, a triumphant Alioto struck back, keeping her from being named chair of the Bay Area’s pollution control board. She later told her biographer, Jerry Roberts, that in private Alioto had admonished her with a remark she never forgot. “You don’t cash loser’s tickets at the winner’s table,” he told the woman whose career he had backed until then.

In 1978, hours before San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated in their City Hall offices, Feinstein, then president of the Board of Supervisors, told reporters that she would never again run for mayor after two previous defeats.

Later in the day, she stood on the steps of City Hall to announce the deaths of her colleagues, her skirt stained with blood. The following week she was chosen interim mayor, then led the city through the aftermath with a calm dignity and went on to serve 10 years in the office.

With Saturday the deadline for filing as a replacement candidate in the Oct. 7 recall election of Gov. Gray Davis, Feinstein’s final decision on whether to enter the race will shape how the campaign is fought and help determine who runs.

Even after she has publicly denounced the recall, there has been a movement by other elected Democrats to draft her as a candidate.

Republican Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor and a longtime friend, has said he would step into the race only if Feinstein were definitely out.

Even Democratic political consultants who back Davis say her entree would destroy their strategy. Davis’ plan -- one backed by national Democratic leaders--is to keep a united front in the party, refusing to offer voters a Democratic alternative on the list of replacement candidates. Polls conducted by The Times indicate that Feinstein could shift the balance from voters turning down the recall to voters eager to replace Davis with the well-known senator.

Through it all, Feinstein has had little to say publicly.

In June, she denounced the recall, telling reporters: “I have no intention of running. I’m a U.S. senator and I’m seriously involved in what I do.”

Caught last week by the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call for a comment, she was less definitive, saying of calls by fellow legislators for her to enter the race: “It’s a very heartfelt vote of confidence and I’m appreciative of it. But I have no further comment.”

Feinstein, 70, has maintained through the years that she prefers executive roles, such as mayor, to the legislative position she now holds.

As a replacement gubernatorial candidate, she would offer Democrats three key ingredients in the abbreviated, 59-day campaign: personal wealth, the ability to quickly raise large sums of money and broad name recognition.

Despite those advantages, close advisors have said now doesn’t look like the time.

“If I thought she were running, I’d be making 25 fund-raising calls and 25 political calls and I’m really not doing that,” said Feinstein political advisor Kam Kuwata. “Although I do believe if Dianne ran, she would win.”

It would be a seat many say she has long aspired to hold.

“Nobody has wanted to be governor of California more than Dianne Feinstein,” said Philip Trounstine, a longtime San Jose Mercury News political editor who now runs the Survey and Public Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University. “That’s the job she’s truly wanted. When that became unavailable to her, she threw herself into being a U.S. senator.”

She rose to the Senate from a privileged, though troubled, childhood in San Francisco where her father was a prominent doctor and her mother suffered from an undiagnosed brain disorder and a drinking problem that made her prone to violent outbursts.

At Stanford University, Feinstein, born Dianne Goldman, became student body vice president despite opposition to women running for office. She first ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969. By then, she was the mother of a child from a short first marriage and was remarried to a well-known surgeon, Bertram Feinstein. She later married her current husband, billionaire investment banker Richard Blum.

She lost a tight gubernatorial race to Republican Pete Wilson in 1990. She won a special election in 1992 to finish the last two years of Wilson’s term in the U.S. Senate and successfully fought back a fierce challenge two years later by Michael Huffington, who is currently considering a run in the recall.

Feinstein, criticized as inexperienced when she was considered as a possible running mate for presidential candidate Walter Mondale in 1984, has emerged as a prominent national leader. As a senator, Feinstein has managed to forge compromises with Republicans and earn regard for her command of complicated issues, despite the inclination of many in Washington to thwart the efforts of Californians.

Along the way, Feinstein developed a dislike for nasty campaigns, a factor some who know her say may weigh against entering what looks to be a brutal fight for the governorship.

Feinstein also has a deep aversion to recall elections from her own experience.

In her first elected term as San Francisco’s mayor, a self-described communist group committed to preserving the right to bear arms forced a recall election after she signed legislation in the city to ban handguns. The ban had been ruled unconstitutional before the election was held.

Feinstein has described her recall, fueled in part by anger in the gay community at her veto of a city ordinance permitting unmarried couples to register as domestic partners, as one of her career’s most painful moments.

“I feel terrible about it,” she told The Times after the recall signatures had been turned in. “I work hard. I try to be a good public servant. I’m honest. I’ve had to make tough decisions. This city, as a product of those decisions, is the most fiscally secure city, I believe, in America. And the mayor’s up for recall. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”

Feinstein turned back the recall, with 80% of the vote in her favor, solidifying her political power in the city.

Davis faces a far different set of circumstances: He signed a budget only after a long fight over how to close a $38-billion shortfall. And as a governor, he remains unpopular with the majority of California voters.

Even so, Feinstein said she believes the current recall -- helped along by $1.6 million from the personal fortune of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) -- is an abuse of the system.

“You don’t recall someone because you don’t like them,” Feinstein told Kuwata when she first heard of the effort, he recalled. “Dianne Feinstein has run for governor, has looked at running for governor, and down the road in future times she’s never foreclosed the possibility of running for governor,” Kuwata said. “She just thinks this process is terrible.”

Those who have followed Feinstein’s career closely say she is likely to stay out of the race. But they add that she would not let her past statements about not running stop her from entering if she decides it is the right thing to do.

“They keep saying she’s not interested but she’s not doing much to tamp down the situation either,” said Roberts, now the executive editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press and the author of the 1994 biography “Dianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See You Cry.”

“She’s probably really enjoying the attention and the flattery of that,” he said. “But she’s pretty happy in the Senate. She’s become a player there. The idea of giving that up and going to this mess in Sacramento where she doesn’t have many allies or longtime contacts? That could be the decisive factor.”