Feinstein, Wilson Open Battle Early : Campaign: Democrat embarks on a unity tour while Republican unveils commercial that includes praise from his opponent.

Democratic nominee Dianne Feinstein traveled the length of California in a jubilant show of party unity Wednesday and, in the afterglow of a primary that changed the state’s political landscape, opened the contest for the governorship with Republican winner Pete Wilson.

Her commanding 11-point primary victory over Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp just hours old, Feinstein began her general election campaign by heralding her victory as a tribute to a centrist mainstream in the state and to the notion of “history in the making.”

Wilson also marched into battle early, unveiling at a Los Angeles breakfast a television commercial in which he heaps praise on himself--using letters and remarks made by Feinstein, a longtime friend. And, forewarned by the election results of Feinstein’s appeal, Wilson announced he would be “just as charismatic as hell” in the coming months.

The race, already characterized by the nation’s political parties as the most important governor’s contest this year, may have also become the most interesting Tuesday with Feinstein’s defeat of Van de Kamp. It established an unprecedented matchup between an incumbent U.S. senator and the former San Francisco mayor seeking to be the first woman elected governor of California.

The primary itself was historic. Five of the six women competing for nominations in the state’s constitutional offices won. Besides Feinstein, they are state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who will challenge incumbent Leo T. McCarthy for lieutenant governor; Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, a Republican who will battle incumbent Secretary of State March Fong Eu; Kathleen Brown, the daughter and sister of former Democratic governors who will run against the incumbent treasurer, Republican Thomas Hayes.

In another key race, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith defeated Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner after a tumultuous campaign to win the Democratic nomination for attorney general. Smith, not always an ally of Feinstein, joined her in her first appearance Wednesday, in San Francisco. Smith will face Republican Dan Lungren in November.

Tuesday’s passage of Prop. 111, the initiative which doubles the state’s gasoline tax and increases California’s spending limit, brought widespread relief among politicians for whom it was a referendum on taxes in the state where the nation’s tax revolt was born.

Feinstein, who along with the other gubernatorial contestants supported the measure, declared that vote in itself is evidence of a new political reality in California that would make it possible for the next governor to begin rebuilding a state whose infrastructure has grown tattered.

“People were willing to say for the first time since the passage of Prop. 13 (in 1978), ‘I want to put my money where my mouth is,’ ” she said.

The former San Francisco mayor was joined in Los Angeles by Van de Kamp, who pledged his support to the Democratic cause and urged his supporters to do likewise. Other members of the Democratic ticket attended her press conferences in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, while Wilson was joined in Los Angeles by fellow Republican winners.

“We agree on so many more things than we disagree on,” said Van de Kamp, who won praise as a “class act” from Feinstein, with whom he had waged a battle that grew increasingly testy in recent weeks.

Van de Kamp’s swift show of support heartened Democrats who had been concerned that the party would be fractured heading into what is expected to be a hard-fought contest with Wilson, who faced no serious opposition in his primary.

Feinstein, armed with assurances that Van de Kamp would be in her corner, acted swiftly to move the image of the Democratic Party to the center, to her ideological turf, where she said she would spotlight “centrist, practical, common sense issues.”

“I’m one that wants this party to respond to the middle of the political spectrum,” she said. “I want to bring home Democrats who have defected.”

The move shifts her close to the turf of Wilson, a Republican moderate with whom she has shared not only a working relationship but also some basic issue positions. Both support the death penalty. Both oppose offshore oil drilling. Both declare themselves to be abortion rights advocates. Both are moderates on the environment and are often allied with business.

As strongly suggested by the candidates on Wednesday, the upcoming general election race could be a virtual re-run of the primary between Feinstein and Van de Kamp.

Feinstein on Wednesday talked tough on crime, attempting as she did with Van de Kamp to co-opt that issue. But at the same time, she proudly boasted that Democrats, under her leadership, would be also be “caring.”

Wilson, as Van de Kamp did before him, began the general election campaign by insisting that the issues of gender and abortion rights which so propelled Feinstein in the last few months are simply not important.

“The issues in this campaign are who has done a better job in the past and who has better ideas for the future,” Wilson declared at an early morning unity breakfast.

Wilson, who supports abortion rights, said the issue of abortion “is largely irrelevant to this campaign.”But the gubernatorial nominee will be sharing the ticket with Bergeson, whose anti-abortion stance is expected to remind voters of the Republican Party’s internal disagreement on the issue.

The senator also said he believes that Feinstein’s gender will not be a compelling part of the campaign.

“Anyone who is predicting a campaign on that is on rather shaky ground,” he said. “They’re going to have to have a good deal more to offer than gender.”

His statements, however, flew in the face of Los Angeles Times exit polling showing that of the issues important to voters, the death penalty and abortion rights are paramount. The polls also showed that a large part of Feinstein’s appeal is linked to her gender.

Wilson said he plans to campaign as the candidate of change--much as did Van de Kamp, only to find that voters perceived Feinstein as the personification of change. Among the issues cited by the senator was his environmental record, which was recently judged by state environmentalists as better than Feinstein’s. But Feinstein could be assisted in November by the presence on the ballot of the Big Green environmental initiative--ironically, a measure placed on the ballot by Van de Kamp in hopes that it would increase his odds of victory. Wilson opposes that measure.

Feinstein’s staff began the general campaign on an upbeat note, reporting that Van de Kamp supporters have begun making overtures to help out the San Franciscan.

“There is an enormous desire to win,” said Hadley Roff, a political confidant. “That is a great propellant.”

But Feinstein’s campaign now is close to broke, and she was blunt Wednesday about the necessity of raising money fast.

“Our first vulnerability right now is financial,” she told supporters and reporters at Los Angeles International Airport. “We need to go out and raise a good deal of money.”

She specifically directed her pitch to women across the country. “This is an unparallelled opportunity for women today to come financially into the political big time,” she said.

Feinstein had steadily raised money through the close of the primary; 21 fund-raisers were held in 14 days before the primary, including a $100,000 affair Sunday at the chic Spago restaurant. But much of the cash flow paid for television commercials.

Wilson, at the last accounting, had about $3.4 million in cash reserves.

Feinstein spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said it is unlikely that the former San Francisco mayor would have enough collected before July 1 to mount a new advertising campaign. “Clearly, we don’t have enough to sustain any kind of long-term buy,” she said.

Wilson’s staff refused to say how much money his campaign would spend in coming weeks, but the senator said he would be “visible” on television for the short term.

Times staff writers Victor Zonana and Dan Morain contributed to this report.