Feinstein Gains Willie Brown’s Support

This is transition time for Dianne Feinstein.

For months, the former San Francisco mayor has been campaigning for the Democratic nomination for governor as an underdog and an outsider.

But on Tuesday, she awoke to find the California Poll showing she had caught up with her opponents. And then she strode into a news conference to announce an endorsement from the capital’s ultimate insider: Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, a fellow San Franciscan.

Feinstein is hoping the poll results and Brown’s endorsement will persuade Democratic voters in the June primary that she is for real, a credible candidate. “I am not irrelevant,” she insisted.

The endorsement, while not unexpected, is further evidence of Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s deteriorating relationship with the Legislature. Van de Kamp has angered lawmakers by describing the Capitol as a “swamp” of political corruption, proposing to ban gifts and speaking fees and limiting legislators to 12 years in office.

At the news conference with Feinstein, Brown accused Van de Kamp of being “opportunistic” by trying to portray himself as an outsider in order to capitalize on the public’s increasingly suspicious attitude toward state lawmakers.

Van de Kamp, Brown said, actually is part of the “good old boys” network, a politician who is on a first-name basis with legislators, a man “whom you can see on some occasions at the nighttime watering holes drinking out of other people’s glasses.”

In contrast, Feinstein is a legitimate independent operator who nonetheless would be able to work well with lawmakers to solve the state’s problems, he contended. He said she has “a superior brain” and called her a “risk-taker” who would not be afraid to try new approaches to old dilemmas.

Feinstein said her alliance with the Assembly leader would allow her, as governor, to win approval of her legislative program in a way that Gov. George Deukmejian has been unable to do and Van de Kamp might find difficult, given his bashing of lawmakers.

“Having the support of a Willie Brown, who is a master at what he does, is important to me,” she said. “I think it will help me through many pitfalls I might otherwise very enthusiastically fall into.”

Brown and Feinstein have been friends and allies since Brown supported her first bid for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969.

At the time, Brown was a five-year veteran of the Legislature and a rising star. Now he is the senior member of the Assembly and arguably the second most influential politician in the state, after the governor. He is a powerhouse of a fund-raiser. But he also has been a symbol of liberal politics and a lightning rod for partisan criticism of Democratic candidates.

Brown, however, cautioned Feinstein’s opponents not to attack him in hopes of undermining her. Republican leaders have been doing that for years, to no avail, he noted.

“They run against me, they lose elections,” he said. “She runs for the governorship, she wins.”