NEWS ANALYSIS : Senate Races Plod Along Despite Stakes

California’s historic election campaign for two U.S. Senate seats finally lurched from the starting blocks this past week--and stumbled toward a political twilight zone.

With less than two months before the June 2 primary, the issues voters have heard about with the most passion are bum checks from the defunct bank of the U.S. House of Representatives and the arrogance of Congress. And this from Mel Levine and John Seymour, both candidates who are members of Congress.

As the year opened, Californians beheld an opportunity to write political history: Two U.S. Senate seats are on the ballot for the first time, there are no elected incumbents running and a field of new faces is ready to discuss serious issues facing the state and nation.

But there has been mostly silence as the Senate candidates have either been unable to gain the attention of voters or have not really tried. The pace of the race has confounded political experts who expected that the new faces and dual races would force candidates to campaign earlier than they have.

Marty Wilson, a consultant to the campaign of the appointed senator, Seymour, observed: “People are not tuned in. Candidates are not raising as much money as they would have four years ago (the last Senate contest). They’ve waited to a heck of a lot later date to get the message out.”

Clint Reilly, a San Francisco political consultant, said: “You’ve got to spend money on media early, maybe even earlier than this. The more cluttered the environment, the less impact you get.”

Now, just as voters are being asked to focus on the Senate contests, the prospect of a raucous California presidential primary campaign that was not supposed to happen threatens to drown out any substantial Senate debate.

“There will be an incredible amount of confusion,” said California Poll founder Mervin Field.

Candidates for the two-year and six-year Senate terms have spent most of their time soliciting campaign funds in a hostile environment. The recession has closed or crimped the pocketbooks of many traditional givers, fund-raisers have said. Senate candidates must compete for scarce dollars with the campaigns for President, California’s 52 House seats and 100 state legislative contests.

Three major Democrats and three Republicans are seeking their parties’ nomination for the regular six-year seat of retiring Democrat Alan Cranston, who is leaving Congress after being embroiled in the savings and loan scandal. Three Democrats and three Republicans are running for the final two years of the seat Wilson resigned to become governor.

Most candidates have wrapped their campaigns around the economy and have delivered major addresses on issues such as tax incentives for business, broadened health care for Americans and trade policy. But the speeches are made primarily to scattered small groups and have gotten limited attention from the media.

In fact, a comparison of the California Poll ratings of some of the most visible candidates in February, 1991, and March, 1992, bear a striking resemblance. For example, Republican Sen. John Seymour stood at 35% in the contest with his leading opponent, William E. Dannemeyer, a conservative congressman from Fullerton, more than a year ago. He was at 37% in late March.

Former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat running for the seat held by Seymour, stood at 54% in February, 1991, and 55% last month. Her major foe, state Controller Gray Davis, had 26%, down six points from last year.

The conclusion of the experts reading the polls is that everything the candidates did for the past year had little impact on the voting public.

The event that signaled the start of the public campaign was the launching last week of the first multimillion-dollar television advertising campaign by Levine, who is running to succeed Cranston.

Levine is a preppy-looking 49-year-old, five-term congressman from Santa Monica who enjoys a reputation as a serious, productive legislator, but is virtually unknown outside his district in Los Angeles’ Westside and the South Bay--and in Washington.

Levine, a prodigious fund-raiser, remained out of the public eye and off the House voter rolls for much of the past year while amassing a $4-million treasury for his primary campaign against Rep. Barbara Boxer of Marin County and Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy.

The California political Establishment has been waiting for the “$4-million gorilla,” as one expert put it, to pounce with a TV advertising blitz designed to define Levine to the voters and boost his poll standing from its meager 7%.

When it came, Levine’s first ad campaign glossed quickly over his record on the issues. The pervasive theme of all three commercials is that he did not write any bad checks on his account at the defunct House bank.

“I used a private bank, just like you,” intones Levine, somewhat piously, some observers thought. Levine is one of California’s wealthiest politicians. Aides said he quit using his House bank account shortly after he went to Washington in 1985 because it was not convenient for him and his wife.

California Poll’s Field, who has been analyzing California politics for four decades, puzzled over the Levine approach.

“It’s a strange way to be defined, to come out and say: ‘I am not a crook,’ ” Field said.

Yet, Field said members of Congress are justified in being defensive. “This is a bad time for any congressman to be thinking about moving up.”

In the 1992 environment, consultant Reilly said, a candidate wants to use television to project an image that differentiates him or her from the pack. For Reilly, the image that “I’m not a check writer” does not meet that test.

“You have got to tap into people’s anger and frustration with the system and show yourself as someone willing to take it on,” said Marty Wilson, who has worked in Pete Wilson campaigns but is not related to him.

Seymour was the first to begin television advertising this year. His ad, starting March 1, lambasted the arrogance of Congress, even though Seymour has been in Congress since Wilson appointed him to the Senate in January, 1991.

The ad did not identify Seymour either as a senator or a candidate for the Senate. The simple goal, his aides said, was to raise Seymour’s name identification among voters and portray him as someone with “the guts to make a difference.” Even though he had been in the Senate for 14 months, as many as half the voters could not recognize him.

Another factor that makes 1992 a difficult year for the experts to dope out is that women are first-rank contenders in both Democratic primaries: Boxer for the six-year seat and Feinstein, the 1990 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, for the Seymour seat.

In some past elections, experts predicted that issues such as abortion would trigger a particularly heavy women’s vote in favor of certain candidates, regardless of political party allegiance. History has demonstrated, though, that women wound up voting just about the same way they always did--basically the same as men.

Field thinks this year may be different because of the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last fall and the Senate’s treatment of sexual harassment charges brought against him by Anita Hill. Boxer has been building her campaign on a corps of loyal women supporters and contributors. Feinstein has focused her campaign on women’s issues far more intensely than when she ran for governor.

The Thomas-Hill clash has triggered a mood, Field said, of: “We’ve got to break up this male clique.” The effect of the Thomas-Hill issue is “just phenomenal, broad and it sticks,” Field said.

But Boxer and Feinstein face problems that are expected to hurt their campaigns, although no one can guess to what extent. Boxer acknowledged writing 87 bad checks on the House bank. The Ethics Committee said it was 143.

And last week, the state Fair Political Practices Commission sued Feinstein, alleging that her campaign for governor improperly reported more than $8 million in campaign contributions and expenditures. One allegation is that she failed to report that nearly $3 million in personal loans to her campaign originated with the Bank of America and that her husband, Richard Blum, guaranteed the loans as co-signer.

On the Republican side, party ideology is the heaviest drumbeat. Conservatives Dannemeyer and Los Angeles television commentator Bruce Herschensohn are carrying the flag of the GOP right. Dannemeyer, who has been the most strident in his attacks on Seymour in the two-year contest, once reached 19% in the California Poll, but has been stuck at 16% and 17% since last September.

Field said the conservative right has gotten more attention in California than its numbers deserve and Dannemeyer may have reached the ceiling of his core support.

However, Herschensohn, who ran a respectable but losing race for the Senate in 1986, has gained more steadily than any candidate. A year ago, Herschensohn had 19% in his contest with moderate Rep. Tom Campbell of Palo Alto and Palm Springs Mayor Sonny Bono. This March, Herschensohn was in front with 28% to Campbell’s 25% and Bono’s 19%.

One Herschensohn advantage is that he is well known to a large number of loyal Southern California voters who have heard his commentaries over the years. It also might not hurt that he has never held elective office.

Bono’s candidacy has injected some levity in the otherwise somber Senate campaigns. The former entertainer and partner of singer-actress Cher often comes across as a somewhat charming bumbler who struggles with questions on complex issues such as trade policy.

Articulation is not his strong point, Bono concedes. But he has made his points about frustration with the bureaucracy and politics-as-usual well enough to become a factor in the contest. Bono gained three points in the California Poll between January and March.