CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : GOVERNOR : Feinstein Pelts Wilson With a Populist Assault

Scrambling as Election Day nears, Dianne Feinstein pelted Pete Wilson Wednesday with a populist-flavored assault that cast him as an insider who is protective of “big interests” and her as an underdog battling the status quo.

In an unusually biting speech before more than 1,000 cheering residents of Leisure World in Laguna Hills, Democrat Feinstein accused Wilson, in effect, of selling out to his campaign contributors--a characterization that Wilson has flatly denied.

Wilson, told of her remarks later, said Feinstein was “succumbing to pressure.”

Feinstein’s campaign, hoping to break away from Wilson in the closing days, also launched two television commercials Wednesday that seek to stick both the big-taxer and incumbent labels on Wilson.

Feinstein has increasingly cast her campaign in recent days in the populist mode, a strategy popular with many Democrats around the nation who are trying to grasp the sweep of voter discontent with incumbents in general and Republicans in particular.

“My agenda is not the agenda that the special interests like,” said Feinstein. “They want to do business as usual in the state of California. If you want to do business as usual, including the gridlock, including the education system, including the criminal justice system, then vote for Pete Wilson.”

The former San Francisco mayor, in a speech that mixed rosy assessments of her governorship and tough slaps at Wilson, listed actions Wilson had taken that she said benefited campaign contributors.

At one point, she all but accused Wilson of complicity in the deaths of two San Diego boys who were killed by old military ordnance that they found near their homes. Ten years before the deaths, when Wilson was mayor of San Diego, a resident of the area had warned him to clean up the ordnance. The Army had also informed Wilson by letter that “due caution” should be exhibited in dealing with the site, formerly an artillery range.

Despite the suggestions, the site was not cleaned up.

“The mayor permitted the development of housing and open space to go ahead without the proper cleanup of the bombs,” Feinstein told the Leisure World residents. “And 10 years after, a bomb exploded and killed two 8-year-olds on that site. In the meantime, Pete Wilson accepted $9,000 in campaign contributions from developers of the property. I say that’s not protecting and serving the people.”

Asked whether she meant to imply that he was in part responsible for the deaths, Feinstein said, “I think that he should have taken more forceful action, yes.”

Wilson, campaigning in Griffith Park, called Feinstein’s use of the tragedy “very sad.”

“That really does show she’s succumbing to pressure,” he said. “It’s just too bad, too bad that she isn’t sticking to real issues. It’s just a shame that she’s stooping to that.”

Feinstein, however, defended her discussion of the deaths by saying it indicated Wilson’s behavior as mayor. She also compared his handling of the recommendations that he clean up the excess ordnance to her handling of proposals to strengthen the rim of Candlestick Park in San Francisco to prevent its collapse in the event of an earthquake.

“We took the action that we had to,” she said of her decision to reinforce the stadium’s roof--a move which became notable when Candlestick held up during the Oct. 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake.

“It was painful because it cost a lot of money, at a time when we had other problems like AIDS and homelessness. But we did what had to be done.”

Feinstein’s campaign commercials are in part an attempt to defuse ads that Wilson has run which accuse the Democrat of hiking taxes and spending money freely in her tenure as mayor of San Francisco.

In one ad, she tells voters that Wilson “voted for the largest tax increase in California history”--but does not mention that the vote occurred in 1967.

In a second ad, she says that Wilson has “pushed for taxes”--not mentioning which kinds--and seeks to tie Wilson to George Bush’s now-broken promise that he would not raise taxes. “Don’t read his lips,” the ad says, in a take-off from Bush’s famous “read my lips--no new taxes” theme.

Before the senior citizens, Feinstein criticized Wilson for voting in 1985 to freeze the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients.

“I don’t think that any candidate that supports the tax breaks for the rich and cuts Social Security for senior citizens should be elected governor of the state of California,” she said.

Feinstein spoke before large and enthusiastic crowds for the second straight day. On Tuesday, about 2,500 students applauded her speech at Santa Monica College, and on Wednesday at Leisure World, more than 1,000 residents jammed into an auditorium to hear her address. Others, forced from the building by a fire marshal, listened from outside.

But while Wilson has sounded recently as though he is supremely confident of election, Feinstein was casting her chances in less certain language. Told of an Orange County contest which awarded prizes to those who could carve the best impersonation of Feinstein and Wilson, the candidate said her pumpkin image would be “probably a little tired, very determined--I hope a winner.”

After the Leisure World visit, Feinstein traveled to a nearby elementary school, where she talked to students about drugs and Halloween costumes. At an impromptu assembly, at which most of the students paid more attention to television cameras than to Feinstein, she noted pointedly that all of the student body officers were male.

“Next year, maybe more girls ought to try to run,” said Feinstein. “If I get elected governor, maybe I’ll give you the courage to do that.”