Candidates Launch Fall Campaign for Governor : Feinstein: Democrat promises voters a ‘new awakening’ for the California dream.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein promised voters Monday that if she is elected governor there will be a “new awakening” for the California dream, which she said “has quietly slipped away” during eight years with Republican Gov. George Deukmejian.

The former mayor of San Francisco, an untraditional Democrat, opened her gubernatorial campaign against Republican Pete Wilson in traditional fashion--with Labor Day speeches to the annual Catholic Labor Institute breakfast in Los Angeles and the 33rd annual Alameda County AFL-CIO barbecue at the county fairgrounds here.

Feinstein broke little new ground in terms of issues. She, in effect, tried to introduce herself anew to Californians after a summer of bitter personal exchanges with Wilson.

Feinstein ignored Wilson entirely during her breakfast address and made just an indirect mention of him in her speech later in the day.

“Today is kickoff day for the fourth quarter of this campaign and it’s the day the experts tell us the voters will actually start listening,” she said. “So for those of you who may have just tuned in, let me introduce myself: I am Dianne Feinstein and I am running for governor of the state of California.”

While generally considered a middle-of-the-road Democrat who lost most of labor’s support to Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp in the primary, Feinstein received a warm reception in Los Angeles and reciprocated with a litany of promises. They included a labor liaison in the governor’s office and officials chosen with labor’s help to run vital agencies like the state Department of Industrial Relations, the Industrial Welfare Commission and the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

“We can continue to drift along as though we still lived in a world where dad worked in the same job for 40 years, where mommy stayed home and made dinner and where kids didn’t have to worry about drug dealers in school,” she said. “Or we can take control of our future, we can face the new reality of the ‘90s.”

Feinstein failed to mention to the labor leaders one key issue: Proposition 139, the Deukmejian-sponsored ballot initiative that would require state prison convicts to help pay their keep by working inside-the-wall jobs provided by private enterprise.

Organized labor is bitterly opposed to what it sees as competition for jobs in a job-scarce era. John F. Henning, chief executive of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, denounced the proposal in a preliminary address, with Feinstein listening on, as “a dagger in the heart of labor.”

Arriving in Oakland later in the day via chartered jet, Feinstein told reporters that no slight to labor was intended--that she had not talked about any ballot propositions in the speech.

She explained that she does differ from labor on the issue and supports passage of Proposition 139. “I think the point of the initiative is that people believe that inmates should work.”

Feinstein emphasized, however, that if elected governor, and if Proposition 139 passes, she would implement it carefully so that no state prison convict does any work outside the prison and that no “honest, hard-working” employees would lose their jobs.

Told by reporters that Wilson had accused her of changing position on the issue--that she once had opposed the measure--Feinstein said that Wilson was wrong. She once was quoted as saying that she was not in favor of Proposition 139 if it meant that state convicts could work on the outside. But Monday, she said the governor would have the authority to prevent that from happening.

Also on Monday, Feinstein may have prematurely disclosed that she and Wilson may debate each other twice, on Oct. 7 and 17. Later, Dee Dee Myers, her press secretary, said the two campaigns have set aside those two dates for debates, but that other arrangements dealing with the debate formats have not been concluded.

In her Los Angeles appearance, Feinstein chronicled the costs of state government that failed to keep up with rapid change in a state that is close to surpassing a population of 30 million. Record numbers of Californians are forced to live on minimum wages, breathe dirty air and drink unclean water, she said. They face the highest housing costs in the nation and a third of the state’s 10th-graders will drop out of school before graduating. Even those who do get their diplomas have trouble filling out job applications, she said.

“It’s time to put the era of drift behind us. It’s time for a new awakening in this great state. And that’s why this election is so important because while those in power have sat back and done little the last eight years, our problems have grown and our future is less secure.”

She promised to break the Sacramento impasse over a health insurance program for all California workers and to reform the state’s auto insurance so that the poor can afford liability coverage.

She also talked about providing parental leave and child care for workers, keeping violent criminals behind bars, care for the homeless and mentally ill, the phasing out of dangerous pesticides and tough regulation of the savings and loan industry.

As she has before, she said she will put heavy emphasis on expanding the state’s early childhood education program financed with a proposed increase of the state’s lottery collections.

Feinstein did refer to Wilson once in her Pleasanton speech, although not by name. She said that “my opponent” was chosen by Republicans to run for governor so that he would be in a position to veto any reapportionment of congressional and legislative districts that did not suit the GOP.