CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : TV Pulls Plug on Debate Between Wilson, Feinstein

The second televised debate between gubernatorial candidates Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson was abruptly canceled Tuesday, two days before it was to occur, after a topsy-turvy day of negotiating.

The candidates at one point agreed to a satellite-assisted, bicoastal contest only to have their television sponsors pull the plug.

At day’s end, Republican Wilson and Democrat Feinstein were mulling over a list of five days and times offered by KPIX-TV, the San Francisco CBS affiliate that was to sponsor the hourlong contest at 8 p.m. Thursday.

The fate of the debate has been up in the air for days. Originally, the second debate was to be held last Thursday, but it was pushed back a week when Wilson returned to Washington to cast votes in the Senate.

On Tuesday, with the Senate still in session and expected to remain so through the rescheduled debate night, Wilson suggested in a letter faxed to Feinstein and reporters that the two hold the session from studios 3,000 miles apart. Wilson would be in Washington and Feinstein at KPIX-TV.

Feinstein quickly faxed back her response, accepting the offer of a bicoastal debate and challenging Wilson to a third session.

At that point, KPIX-TV bowed out.

“It’s canceled,” said station spokeswoman Jennifer Barnett. “It’s going to be too difficult for us. . . . We’d have to do it from another facility. There’s too many complexities.”

Barnett said the station gave Feinstein and Wilson five alternate dates--Saturday or Sunday at 3 p.m., and the following Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday at 8 p.m. The station gave the candidates until today to make a decision and stipulated that they agree on a time when both could be present in the San Francisco studio.

Already, there were potential problems with rescheduling the debate.

The Senate is expected to be in session through the weekend and possibly until Tuesday. Wilson could conceivably leave Washington while the Senate was meeting, but he would then be playing into Feinstein’s recurrent criticism of his absences during the campaign.

The latter of the dates suggested by KPIX would put the debate within five or six days of the election, a move that either side might see as limiting its flexibility.

Meanwhile, Wilson’s campaign ruled out a third debate and accused Feinstein of raising the possibility as a diversion.

“Feinstein knows that she’s trailing the senator, she’s coming out with negative hits (advertisements) today--she’s desperate,” said Wilson spokesman Bill Livingstone.

Feinstein said in her letter to Wilson that a third debate would be helpful to California citizens.

“With Election Day just two weeks away, there is increasing interest in the campaign and I believe another debate would be very valuable,” she said.

The first of the candidate debates was held Oct. 7 at the Burbank studios of KNBC-TV, where Feinstein and Wilson dueled for an hour. The debate earned a respectable television audience after the California Assn. of Broadcasters worked for months to secure agreements to air the event on more than two dozen stations.

The second session was expected to have a much narrower viewership. No large Los Angeles television outlet was planning to air the debate live on Thursday.