Feinstein Ads Get the Race Going : Politics: Her television spots seeking the Democratic nomination for governor begin today. In one, she takes an early swipe at rival Van de Kamp.

If television advertising largely shapes statewide political battles, then the 1990 California governor’s race officially begins today as Democratic candidate Dianne Feinstein goes on the air with the campaign’s first commercials.

Feinstein’s 30-second spots, which will run in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego, attempt to introduce her to voters who may not be as familiar with her as residents of San Francisco, where she was mayor from 1978 to 1988.

Known as “bio spots” in the political business, her ads open with what many believe was Feinstein’s finest hour, the day in November, 1978, when she began to pull San Francisco together immediately after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

As president of the county Board of Supervisors at the time, Feinstein stepped in as acting mayor, a job she later won twice at the polls.

Her new commercials also give her account of her years as mayor, saying that she cut crime, put more police officers on the street and stopped the dumping of untreated sewage into San Francisco Bay. Those are accurate statements, although her opponents and critics will no doubt argue over the details.

The spots conclude by stating that she has always been pro-choice on abortion and that she is “the only Democratic candidate for governor who is for the death penalty.”

That is Feinstein’s jab at her opponent in the Democratic primary, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who is personally opposed to capital punishment.

Feinstein’s advisers believe that position will hurt Van de Kamp in a state where voters have overwhelmingly endorsed the death penalty in ballot initiatives, and that it would be exploited in the general election by Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, who is unopposed for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

But Van de Kamp’s advisers had a ready comeback Monday.

“John Van de Kamp is the only candidate for governor, Democrat or Republican, who has put people on Death Row in California,” said the attorney general’s campaign manager, Richie Ross.

That was a reference to Van de Kamp’s willingness to argue in court for the death penalty in his role as attorney general. Neither Feinstein nor Wilson has ever prosecuted a criminal case.

Ross said his sources told him that Feinstein will spend $500,000 to air her commercials from today through Feb. 18 and that her advisers had purchased time near local news shows in an effort to reach political insiders and contributors and convince them that her lagging campaign is now up and running.

One source in the Feinstein camp said the ad purchase was actually a little larger than that, but Feinstein manager William Carrick would not discuss it.

Ross was also scathing in his appraisal of the Feinstein ads.

“They leave out a major chapter in Dianne’s life,” he said, “and that is that she sided with the insurance companies when insurance reform was on the ballot in 1988.”

To which Carrick replied, “Yes, just as Van de Kamp sided with the trial lawyers.”

That exchange, spurred by the new Feinstein ads, indicates that the 1990 campaign is indeed under way. It is expected to get even nastier in the coming months.

Political professionals speculated Monday that Feinstein’s advisers may be hoping their television ad purchase will affect any statewide polls taken in late February.

But spread over three weeks, the amount Feinstein apparently is spending to air the ads may be the political equivalent of shouting from the top of a skyscraper at midnight, given the millions of dollars it costs to reach voters in California’s huge and expensive media markets.