CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : GOVERNOR : Feinstein Concedes Defeat, Looks Ahead

If it was an act, it was the best act of her campaign.

On the day after the 1990 gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate Dianne Feinstein strode into a press conference to acknowledge her defeat by Republican Pete Wilson with the air of someone who has experienced a minor setback. She was upbeat, and her eyes seemed focused already on a race for the U.S. Senate.

If tears had been shed, hands wrung, mistakes analyzed and strategies second-guessed during the long vote tally that brought her close but not close enough, Feinstein gave no hint of it. Instead, she joked with reporters, hugged campaign workers and spoke brightly of a future in politics.

“All my life has been public service,” she said. “ . . . It’s what I want to continue to do, one way or another. The only question is how, when and where.”

While insisting no announcement was imminent, she said a Senate race was “certainly an option.” In two years, Democrat Alan Cranston’s U.S. Senate seat is up for election and Wilson’s appointed successor also will face the voters.

Although the concession call to Wilson had not been made until nearly 10 a.m., campaign chairman Duane Garrett said Feinstein had been quietly advised in the early morning that she had no chance of winning. She took the news philosophically, he said.

Feinstein herself admitted to reporters that she had a feeling she was not going to win.

“I had a small sense of foreboding, to be perfectly honest,” she said. “ . . . I’ve learned to trust my vibrations in this business and my vibrations were that it would take an awful (lot) to catch up.”

For Feinstein, the election results ended a roller-coaster campaign, one that began with even her having little hope of victory. As a former mayor who had been out of office for two years, she faced state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp in the primary. Van de Kamp had name recognition in the state and a hefty campaign war chest.

“Look, today was not the worst day of this campaign,” Garrett said. “I mean, we came from nowhere. Early on we had a campaign manager quit by fax. We were 17 points down in the polls. All of our friends were urging us to drop out. In December of 1989 we were within an inch of being out of the race.”

He said Feinstein decided she would continue, but conceded to him privately in January that her chances of winning were “pretty thin.” He said she only began to consider victory in November a real possibility when she upset Van de Kamp in the primary.

Citing earlier political defeats and misfortunes in her personal life, Feinstein’s longtime friends insisted her buoyant mood Wednesday was genuine.

“She’s dealt with so much tragedy in her life she’s learned how to accept it and internalize it and deal with it,” said Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-South San Francisco.) “When she was young she had a mother who was desperately mentally ill. She divorced her first husband and was a single parent for a period of time. He second husband died of cancer and she lost twice for mayor. . . .”

Besides, in Speier’s view, Feinstein did not see the election totally as a personal defeat.

“She really believes that she has opened the doors for women and that she has set the stage for more opportunities for women, and that’s a victory.”