Feinstein Opens Campaign by Promising ‘Accessibility’

Calling it “a historic moment for women,” Democrat Dianne Feinstein formally declared her candidacy for California governor Monday and promised an active, “accessible” stewardship that she said would be in strong contrast to the last seven years of Republican rule.

Feinstein, 56, who was mayor of San Francisco from 1978-88, is the first woman to run as a major candidate for governor in California history, and in press conferences across the state Monday she said she hoped that distinction would aid her in a race.

“I am a woman in a field of men,” said Feinstein at her first stop of the day in Century City. “I believe I will be a forceful, caring, independent governor, not a governor of special interests for professional politicians.”

She declared that only bold leadership can improve life in a state whose image is threatened on several fronts.

“Right now our state is threatened by the failure to plan and manage the growth that provides the opportunity for jobs and homes,” Feinstein said. “It is threatened by crack cocaine and violent crime, and by overcrowded classrooms. It is threatened by people’s loss of belief that government can serve them.”

Although Feinstein laid out an ambitious, if general, agenda to address those threats, she also spoke to what some see as the major justification for her candidacy when she said that she did not think her opponent in the Democratic primary, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, could win in November because of political baggage.

Asked if she believed that Van de Kamp would have trouble winning in November against the expected GOP nominee, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, Feinstein said, “In my heart of hearts I do think he would have trouble and that is one of the reasons I persist. I think there are some judgmental questions involving the Hillside Strangler.”

The latter is a reference to Van de Kamp’s decision as Los Angeles district attorney in the early 1980s not to prosecute Angelo Buono for the murders of nearly a dozen young women whose bodies were found on hillsides around Los Angeles. State prosecutors took over the case and got a conviction of Buono. Van de Kamp has acknowledged that his desire to prosecute Buono on lesser charges was a mistake in judgment.

Feinstein also noted Monday that she supports the death penalty, as do a majority of California voters. Van de Kamp is opposed to capital punishment, but as attorney general he has pursued the death penalty in specific cases.

As for what she would do if elected governor, Feinstein promised to:

- Develop a comprehensive mental health plan for California that would remove some of the homeless from the streets.

- Guarantee health insurance for all working Californians.

- Provide early education for all 4-year-olds, beginning with those who are most disadvantaged.

- Create a state office of children and families “to end domestic violence and improve child care” for working couples and single mothers.

Feinstein also reiterated her desire, announced last week, to create a state growth management commission that would set priorities for different parts of California, including those areas needing more growth as well as those suffering from too much of it.

Pressed to explain how she would pay for her active agenda given the public’s attitude toward higher taxes and the various restrictions on spending, Feinstein replied:

“You all want me to stand up here and say I am going to raise taxes but I am not going to do that. What I am going to do, if elected, is to prioritize state government just as I prioritized city government as mayor of San Francisco. I’m going to work with the Legislature, I’m going to say, ‘We have a problem here that needs solving; how can we do that?’ ”

Feinstein did say she favors using bond sales to finance major programs because specific bond measures enable “people to see where their money is being spent.”

In an interview on the plane flying from Los Angeles to Sacramento, Feinstein said she believed that Republican Gov. George Deukmejian had missed major opportunities over the last seven years to solve the state’s problems.

And she was most critical of what she sees as Deukmejian’s unwillingness to be more visible, “to get out and meet the California people and explain some of the hard choices that face us.”

Feinstein also said she believes that her record of getting large vote majorities in San Francisco’s black community will help her in the Democratic primary.

One of those who introduced her Monday in Century City was Mayor Robert Henning of Lynwood. “Men have had their chance to mess up things,” Henning said. “We need to see what women have to offer.”

Before flying to San Francisco to formally file her intention to run for governor and pay the $2,000 fee, Feinstein said in Sacramento that she is a stronger supporter of choice on abortion than Van de Kamp or Wilson because of her sex. She also noted that while Van de Kamp strongly supports choice as public policy, he has said that he is personally opposed to abortion.

“I know men can protect a woman’s right to choice,” Feinstein said, “but it is also true that it’s different being a woman. I would rest my hopes with a woman on this issue.”

That kind of talk may help Feinstein in the June 5 Democratic primary, but she acknowledged that she is still a long-shot to defeat Van de Kamp because he is much better known in Southern California, where the majority of the voters live.

Feinstein trailed Van de Kamp in the most recent statewide polls, and she and her husband, investment banker Richard C. Blum, have had to lend her campaign $1.3 million of their own money because Feinstein has raised only $1 million from contributors. Van de Kamp, by comparison, has raised more than $4 million; Wilson has raised $8.2 million and does not have primary election opposition.

But by formally filing to run for governor on Monday, Feinstein appeared to end Van de Kamp’s hope that he could drive her out of the race before spring and avoid a bruising primary battle.