COLUMN ONE : Political Rite of Autumn : Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson will meet in a televised debate, a situation where demeanor can be as important as grasp of the issues.

Their minds crammed with facts and figures and aides’ advice, Pete Wilson and Dianne Feinstein will stroll onto a Burbank stage Sunday evening to engage in a rite of autumn: The televised political debate.

No one can guess what will happen or whether it will matter much. It could be a trip across a gyrating high wire, the only remotely unscripted occurrence in the increasingly by-the-book world of politics. Or it could be a seemingly endless mouthing of campaign slogans. It could be a triumph of substance over sound bites, or it could be sound bite Ping-Pong.

In any event, it is likely to be the most-watched gubernatorial debate in state history and, predictably, it has spawned days of preparation by the candidates. It also rekindled questions about a debate’s potential to affect an election and the willy-nilly ways in which victory and defeat are judged.

History gives little guidance to those predicting the outcome. In the most famous--and first--televised presidential debate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy fought to a draw on issues. But Nixon’s haggard physical appearance and the lesser-known Kennedy’s stage presence helped the Democrat surge in voters’ minds.

Sixteen years later, voters queried immediately after the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter presidential debate gave victory to Ford. Days later, surveys showed most thought Carter had won--a shift believed to be the direct result of television replays of the event’s most famous line, Ford’s statement that communist Poland was not under the control of the Soviet Union.

During the most recent series of presidential debates, in 1988, George Bush played on personal warmth and succeeded with a little help from Michael S. Dukakis, who accentuated voter concerns about his own personality with an unemotional response to a question involving his wife’s hypothetical rape.

Those debates illustrated central truths about all such confrontations: Whether on the national or state level, demeanor can be as important as grasp of issues. The chances of committing a campaign-scuttling mistake are far greater than the odds of scoring a compelling victory. And, to the chagrin of politicians, television coverage of selected moments in a debate influences voters far more than the debate itself.

But, with campaigns increasingly dominated by quick-hit television ads, debates still allow voters their most comprehensive look at the politicians they wish to elect, political analysts argue. Gary R. Orren, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, calls debates “a window on the campaign.”

“The voters pull the curtain and peek in,” said Orren, “Very few attentive people watch all the time. Most voters only look in very few times. It becomes an important window to try to peer in.”

Despite the importance placed on face-to-face debates, few analysts see them as capable of swinging large groups of voters unless there is a disastrous series of mistakes by one of the participants.

But Sunday’s debate, which will be aired starting at 6 p.m. on KNBC-TV and relayed to local stations statewide, occurs as the candidates are deadlocked in their race for governor. That would seem to hike its potential impact, since even incremental movement is important now with little more than four weeks left before election day.

Historically, debates have not played as prominent a role in California races as they have on the national scene. When both sides have agreed to debate, television stations have been reluctant to air the sessions. Frequently, politicians simply refused to take part.

Even the man who became known as the “Great Communicator”--former President Ronald Reagan--chose not to debate on television during his runs for governor in 1966 and 1970.

“I am going to work on the issues,” incumbent Reagan said in 1970, when he was challenged by Democrat Jesse Unruh. “I don’t think I need him in a room to do that.”

Debates were rare in 1986, the last time state constitutional officers were up for election. Gov. George Deukmejian exercised the incumbent’s imperative and turned aside Democratic opponent Tom Bradley’s request for a record 14 debates. The candidates for lieutenant governor did not debate, nor did Sen. Alan Cranston and his Republican challenger, Ed Zschau.

Of the few state races where debates have played a role, one involved a principal in this year’s clash, Pete Wilson.

Wilson’s Democratic Senate opponent in 1982, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., had survived 10 televised debates during his two successful runs for governor. Seeking to prove that Wilson, then San Diego’s mayor, would be out of his league in the Senate, Brown tossed a fastball question about the African country of Namibia. Wilson knocked it out of the park.

“He asked a question for the purpose of showing Pete Wilson was not qualified to be senator. And instead he proved that he was,” said George Gorton, Wilson’s current campaign manager.

The Brown-Wilson debates also showed how little issues can change over the years. Some of their most heated sparring centered on then-California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, whom the governor had appointed to the court. Wilson charged that the Bird court had made California “needlessly dangerous”--the same words he now uses in his efforts to tie Bird to Dianne Feinstein.

Unlike debates of past years, this year’s contest has at least the potential to reach a vast number of voters. The California Broadcasters Assn., one of the sponsors, lined up a network of more than two dozen television stations to carry the debate. In many communities, a simultaneous Spanish translation will also be available. The second and last of the planned debates, to be held on Oct. 18 in San Francisco, is not expected to be aired as widely.

Still, few are optimistic that a big audience will tune in Sunday.

“There’s not a sense of civic responsibility running broad and deep across the California electorate,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

More important even than the debate will be the number of people who pay attention to news reports in the following week. Studies have shown that even voters who watch the debate will base their judgments about the candidates’ success on what media analysts say.

Carter “won” the debate in 1976 because of the media’s repetition of the Ford statement on Poland, studies have shown. Analysts also say that Vice President Dan Quayle suffered in 1988 from the constant television repetition of Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen’s famed rejoinder from their debate, “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Mervin Field, director of the California Poll and a 45-year observer of California politics, believes that the “most important people” involved in the debate are the television editors who will decide which bits to replay on news programs.

“The narrow, small band of media gatekeepers are really going to have a profound effect,” Field said.

The importance of the post-debate “spin” by reporters has given rise to widespread criticism of the way debates are judged.

“There’s a great lust for focusing on goofs and mistakes,” said Orren, the Harvard public policy professor, who has studied media influence on politics. Further, he and others say, the media set up expectations that color their later analysis, sometimes erroneously.

In a recent gubernatorial debate in Massachusetts, Democratic nominee John Silber offered a comment about abortion rights, which, he said, “means a woman could go off in private and have her baby in the ninth month and kill that baby.”

It eclipsed anything else said in the substance-filled debate, Orren said. “It was almost an epilogue to the debate,” he said, “and in the next days that was the focus of attention.”

Similar complaints can be made about almost every well-known debate.

“Win-loss is a stupid criterion from which to judge debates,” said the University of Pennsylvania’s Jamieson. “In debates, both candidates win. The electorate learns more about both.”

For candidates, debates can serve myriad purposes. They deliver free television time, not an incidental concern in a multimillion-dollar campaign. They can be used to demonstrate a candidate’s grasp of issues, and potentially comfort supporters who might be waffling.

For a candidate, such as Kennedy in 1960, the physical act of sharing a stage with a more well-known competitor serves to legitimize a candidacy.

But when the candidates are both known, voters most often use debate results to shore up their own biases in either a positive or negative way, analysts say. In that regard, Ford’s gaffe about Poland was particularly harmful because it bolstered impressions among some voters that the President was not too bright.

“They go in and look for reinforcement,” said Washington-based political pollster Celinda Lake. “Most debates don’t make up people’s minds very much. If you can hold your own in a debate, you’re fine. If you’re looking for big gains, it’s normally a mistake.”

Similarly, voters were looking for reinforcement in the second debate between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale in 1984, after the first outing ended with the President looking aged and addled. But Reagan reassured voters and shattered Mondale’s hopes for momentum with a well-timed quip in which he pledged not to take advantage of his challenger’s youth and inexperience.

While voters respond somewhat to what candidates say about issues during a debate, they are even more influenced by the image that comes through the television screen, many debate students believe. According to political lore, voters who listened to the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate via radio thought Nixon won; those who watched on television sided with Kennedy.

“Debates are typically rather substantial and a lot of information is in there,” said Orren. “That notwithstanding, most voters’ reactions to these debates turn more on the personal qualities of the candidates as conveyed, whether they look strong or weak or tough, warm or nice or funny.”

Not all agree. Bill Carrick, campaign director for Feinstein and a veteran of 27 debates when he ran Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt’s 1988 presidential campaign, sees issues and personality as fully linked.

Viewers, he said, “use issues to define character and sometimes use character to define issues. It’s not easily divisible.”

Sunday’s hourlong gubernatorial debate came about after months of negotiating by the two campaign staffs, who ultimately agreed on a split format. In the first half, Wilson and Feinstein will answer questions posed by a panel of reporters. The second half-hour features the two candidates, head to head, without interference.

Both Feinstein and Wilson can claim experience behind the podium. Feinstein and her primary opponent, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, took each other on twice in the month before the June election. While Wilson is engaged in his fourth statewide campaign, he has not debated a general election opponent on television since 1982.

The overriding goal of each candidate is simple: Don’t make a mistake.

“If either one of them has to explain or clarify, that’s going to be murder,” said the California Poll’s Field.

Neither candidate will disclose preparation details, although both scaled back their campaign appearances in recent days to prepare. Both also are seeking to rest up, the better to project a sense of relaxation amid the tension of the debate.

Feinstein’s strategists, and others not associated with the campaign, believe she will be the focus of voters’ attention, rather than Wilson, because polls have shown that voters remain more curious about her.

“She has a real opportunity . . . in that the race is still focusing on her,” said pollster Field. “She has an opportunity to gain and she has an opportunity to lose to a much larger extent than Wilson can.”