Feinstein Vows to Stay in the Race : Politics: Polls show her slipping, but she says she’ll make a strong run for governor.

“I’m in this race and I intend to stay in.”

With those words, Dianne Feinstein tried Thursday to put to rest speculation that she may soon get out of the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

In her first meeting with the news media since a statewide poll showed her effort lagging, Feinstein added, “I believe I’m irreversible on this.”

The independent California Poll released earlier this week showed her trailing Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp 53% to 35% among Democrats who were asked in late October to pick their choice to take on the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, next June.

Six months ago the same polling organization found her leading Van de Kamp and two other potential opponents for the Democratic nomination.

A Los Angeles Times Poll in early October also found Feinstein trailing Van de Kamp, 37% to 25%.

“One of the things I did see in the (latest) California Poll is that my base remains intact,” Feinstein said, referring to the fact that all along she has received about a third of the vote in most polls.

“The challenge is to build on it, to become more visible, to convince people that I would be the best choice,” Feinstein said. “It’s an enormously difficult thing to do, particularly for someone who has never run statewide before.”

And indeed, Feinstein, the 56-year-old former mayor of San Francisco, has generated speculation that she may drop out precisely because she has appeared to be uncertain about how to go about the difficult task of nailing down the nomination as a newcomer to a statewide campaign.

While Van de Kamp has been actively introducing ballot initiatives that he says will be his platform for a 1990 governor’s race, Feinstein has struggled to increase her visibility in Southern California, which holds the bulk of the votes in any election.

Since leasing a condominium in Century City over the summer, Feinstein has spent more and more of her time south of the Tehachapis, meeting with potential donors and trying to persuade them that she has a better chance against Wilson because her support of the death penalty and record as mayor show her to be tougher and more decisive than Van de Kamp--a capital punishment opponent who has been fairly low key in seven years as the state’s top law enforcement official.

Although Feinstein has lagged behind Van de Kamp in raising campaign money, she said Thursday that she has other assets that will make her a strong candidate by next March’s filing date. One of them, she said, is a willingness to express strong opinions on current California problems.

Feinstein said it is “sheer folly” to rebuild the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland as a multilevel structure because the massive damage in the recent earthquake proved that the design was unsound.

And she charged that no one in state leadership is discussing whether the Bay Bridge, also damaged, can safely serve the area in the future after it is reopened later this month.

“What the earthquake really showed,” Feinstein said, “is . . . how bad our policies for the future really are.”

Feinstein also charged that Van de Kamp would not be able to work with the Legislature to solve problems because he has antagonized lawmakers with his so-called ethics initiative, which would limit the terms of legislators.

“I think Pete Wilson and John Van de Kamp are very nice people,” Feinstein said. “But they are part of the politics of the past.”