Feinstein Riding Wave of Voter Regard for Women

Dianne Feinstein sees herself as closing in on history, and her pitch is by no definition subtle. At almost every turn, Feinstein is drawing sharp attention to what is self-evident--she is a woman, and she could be the first woman governor of the most populous state in the union.

Before an audience of men and women--black, Anglo and Latino--in Hawthorne on Thursday, she equated the civil rights struggle with her current battle against John K. Van de Kamp. By implication, she was also looking optimistically to the future and Republican Pete Wilson.

“The message of this campaign is a simple one,” she said. “It’s a message of crossing the threshold, it’s a message of an equal playing field.”

The former San Francisco mayor has drummed home that message throughout the campaign in a way that would have been unthinkable to past generations of women politicians, who in most cases sought to ignore their sex lest it usher them to defeat.

It comes through in ways coy, eloquent or matter-of-fact--denying that she is a “Suzie-come-lately” on the death penalty when Wilson questioned her commitment, calling on the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt in an emotional speech to Democratic Party regulars, calling attention to her motherhood in a classroom full of students.

Most pointedly, Feinstein has argued that she would be--simply by virtue of her sex--the strongest defender of abortion rights. It is an argument that causes Van de Kamp and his campaign aides to bristle.

One of Van de Kamp’s principal campaign surrogates, Rep. Barbara Boxer of Greenbrae, regularly introduces him as the “best feminist in the race.” And Van de Kamp aides were openly thrilled when the California political branch of the National Organization for Women declined to endorse a candidate in the Democratic gubernatorial race. Neither Van de Kamp nor Feinstein, the group said, could muster the necessary six votes from its nine endorsement committee members.

The emphasis Feinstein places on her sex has raised some question as to whether her approach is itself sexist.

“How can you say that? How can you possibly say that? I don’t think there is any sexism in that,” Feinstein told reporters when she spoke recently at a day-care center in La Canada Flintridge.

But Feinstein also seemed to say that if she becomes governor, she wants to be treated like any other chief executive.

“The bottom line is being effective and being able to achieve--not what sex you are,” she said.

Van de Kamp, avoiding touchy political ground, has rarely accused Feinstein of being sexist in her approach. But he has criticized her campaign as one dominated by “style,” not substance. His campaign has been frustrated by her seeming ease at conveying warmth, which Van de Kamp attributes partly to her sex.

“Let me make this clear. I think to win a race statewide, you have to have substance and heart and some soul,” said Van de Kamp.

“There are major questions about where her soul and heart may lie. . . . She’s basically saying, ‘Lookit, I’m a nice person; I was a good mayor and trust me as your next governor and I’ll work this out when I get there.’ ”

There is little doubt, according to public surveys, that Feinstein’s sex has helped. She has consistently fared far better than Van de Kamp among women, who make up 53% of the state’s registered voters.

Even Van de Kamp’s chief campaign consultant, Bob Shrum, acknowledged the impact.

“Yeah, it helps,” he said. “Women have been locked out for a very, very long time and she represents a symbolic statement for women.”

Notably, the director of Wilson’s gubernatorial campaign disagrees.

Voters, according to Otto Bos, “view California at a crossroads. They are looking for someone who can take the helm--and they don’t care what sex the captain is.”

This year in California, Feinstein is one of six women running for constitutional office. Some political analysts attribute the burst here and elsewhere to the continuing impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1989 Webster abortion decision, which energized abortion rights advocates in ways not seen in a generation. Others suggest it is part of a trend whereby voters are more accepting of women candidates, who are thus more likely to run.

Ann Richards, the Texas state treasurer who, like Feinstein, is running for governor, argued in a recent Los Angeles speech that those arguments are “simplified.”

“In both the business and political worlds, the primary issues now are domestic,” Richards said, citing day care, health care, education, homelessness and like concerns. “We’re not vested in the old system. We’re not part of the nature of what has been.”

Feinstein has emphasized just those issues in her campaign, and has taken pains to mollify any voters concerned about electing a woman. She has hit Van de Kamp hard on the issue of crime, and her television ads regularly describe her as “tough” as well as “caring.”

Much of the changing emphasis on sex no doubt has arisen in Feinstein’s campaign because of its historic nature, just as it did for Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.

At times, Feinstein suggests that she represents a change in values that men are less able to bring about.

“I think it’s a reassertion of a different set of values,” she said recently, “. . . to see that people are safer in society, better educated, that we begin to really care about families and children, how we live. This is what I bring.”

But sometimes she zeroes in more simply on history itself.

“The fact that I come in slightly different a shell than most people come to the governor’s office--the fact that as the first woman I ask you to have trust--means that we open that door,” she said Thursday in the Hawthorne appearance, sponsored by the Professional Women’s Democratic Forum.

She opened her address with a battle cry.

“Are you ready to make history on June 5?”

The crowd roared back its applause.