CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : There’s ‘Bread’ on Menu at Feinstein Unity Dinner

Dianne Feinstein surfaces from the political underground tonight to join with Democrats, including vanquished Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, at a Beverly Hills unity dinner that will be the gubernatorial nominee’s first campaign-style appearance in more than two weeks.

While Republican gubernatorial nominee Pete Wilson has been shuttling from his Senate post in Washington to California, where he regularly spends long weekends in statewide campaign marathons, Feinstein has forgone almost all public events since a triumphant spin around California the day after the June 5 primary.

The one time she slipped into public view--in Sacramento last week after a meeting with Democratic leaders--was unplanned.

But while the dinner and a speech tonight will temporarily bring her back into the spotlight, Feinstein privately has been anything but quiet since she won the primary. Behind closed doors, she has been campaigning with a vengeance for a California essential--money.

Feinstein’s emphasis on the private work of fund-raising reflects a harsh political reality: after the fractious battle with Van de Kamp, the former San Francisco mayor’s campaign is nearly broke. And ahead of her lies a general election campaign for which her aides have set a budget of $10 million--three times the amount she received from sources other than her husband, millionaire investment banker Richard Blum, in the primary season.

Wilson, in contrast, glided through the primary with no significant opposition and is sitting on a bankroll of $3.4 million.

Feinstein’s decision to attend almost exclusively to fund-raising, while hardly unexpected, has drawn plenty of taunting from the Wilson camp.

“We’ve been campaigning hard, looking for Dianne,” said Wilson’s campaign director Otto Bos. “We think she’s gone into hiding.”

Wilson himself sniped at Feinstein last weekend, when he alone showed up at a meeting of California newspaper editors that both had agreed to attend. Feinstein’s campaign said she instead went to a stepdaughter’s college graduation.

Feinstein has let Wilson’s goading go unanswered.

“It was our collective agreement that the public is not quite ready to pay attention,” said Dee Dee Myers, Feinstein’s press secretary. “It didn’t make as much sense to be visible now as it did to raise money.”

The fund-raising effort takes on increased urgency for the next nine days. Under California law, candidates can receive a maximum of $1,000 from individuals in each fiscal year, ending June 30. In other words, Feinstein can solicit donations from the politically minded through the end of the month, then come back to those same people after July 1 and get more money, in effect doubling the take.

Since most of Feinstein’s primary donors gave the maximum before June 5, the post-primary effort has centered on Van de Kamp’s supporters and those who sat out the primary. So far, interviews with former Van de Kamp supporters indicate, Feinstein has made substantial inroads there. No specific dollar amounts will be available until financing reports are compiled at the end of the month.

“She wasn’t a lot of people’s first choice--but there’s a lot of enthusiasm,” said one of the attorney general’s prominent supporters whose aid Feinstein solicited recently.

Bob Burkett, a ranking Los Angeles political fund-raiser with close ties to Van de Kamp, agreed. Burkett, in fact, is now organizing a fund-raiser for Feinstein next Wednesday that he said will bring in “well in excess of $100,000.”

“There’s an enormous amount of money out there to be collected,” he added. “The money is out there to put her on the same playing field as Wilson.”

Of the $10-million target for her general election effort, $3 million is expected to come from die-hard Feinstein supporters, another $3 million from Van de Kamp allies and the remainder from Democrats outside California.

Though the proof--in hard cash--has yet to surface, political operatives across the country are confident that Feinstein’s commanding primary victory will carry her close to that goal. They cite the importance for Democrats of gaining the governor’s chair during redistricting, the potential of a self-described ideological centrist, and chiefly, the prospects for a historic first--a woman governor in California.

“We’re beyond the bake sale mentality here,” said Sharon Rodine, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, who said she has found widespread enthusiasm for Feinstein’s candidacy in her travels across the country since primary day. “It’s going to take big bucks. . . . Nationally, the women’s community is looking at this very seriously.”

Tonight’s fund-raiser, which benefits the state Democratic Party, will affect Feinstein only indirectly. Next week, however, she has three expensive fund-raisers scheduled, the proceeds of which will help replenish her depleted campaign accounts.