CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Boxer Makes Final Sprint in Race for Money in Senate Bid

Westside liberals and chic artistes nibbled on politically correct ice cream and gourmet pretzels as Barbara Boxer stepped up to a podium, grabbed the microphone and made her pitch.

“I need your help,” the candidate for U.S. Senate told the crowd gathered on a sunbathed patio at a trendy Santa Monica restaurant-museum-boutique.

“We’re getting down to the wire. . . . Every dollar is going into the television ads. We want to stay toe to toe with our competitors, and it’s going to be difficult.”

And so Boxer on Sunday gave one more shove in her big, final push for cash as the June 2 primary approaches. For her and most of California’s Senate candidates, it seems the race for money remains just as important as the race for votes, even this late in the campaign.

Boxer, a congresswoman from Marin County, is in a tight contest with the better-known Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and the better-financed Rep. Mel Levine for the Democratic nomination to the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Alan Cranston.

Boxer and McCarthy expect to spend about $1 million in television commercials in the final weeks before the primary. Levine could spend twice that as part of a $4-million advertising campaign that began March 31.

On a day that began with a tour of Los Angeles churches, Boxer met with supporters on Levine’s home turf of Santa Monica, attracting a sympathetic, if small, crowd of about 100-150 to a complex of galleries and boutiques on Main Street. Two on-site eateries, Rockenwagner and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, sold food to the milling crowd.

The centerpiece of the event was an auction, in which actor William Schallert (Patty Duke’s dad in the old “Patty Duke Show” on television) peddled art posters, photographs, a script from “Northern Exposure,” a Peter Max tie worn in “thirtysomething,” a sterling silver “Star Trek” pendant, donated by actor Leonard Nimoy, and other items.

Opening the bidding was a poster by self-styled guerrilla artist Robbie Conal. The poster shows the face of Sen. Jesse Helms imposed on a painter’s palette. Intended as a protest of Helms’ efforts to restrict the types of art that the federal government subsidizes, the poster reads: “Artificial. Art official.”

Boxer quickly offered to autograph the poster with these words: “I am Jesse Helms’ worst nightmare.”

“If Jesse Helms were here, and I’m sure he’s not,” Boxer said to the audience’s laughter, “he might be offended by this art. Too bad. Too bad!”

The poster sold for $240.

The money seemed small potatoes, but the Boxer campaign hopes small events like these help to get the word out to drum up votes and contributions.

“People really don’t start paying attention (to a Senate race) until the final weeks,” Boxer’s finance director, Suone Cotner, said. “You’re always fund-raising, right till the end.”

Barbara McGraw, who lives in the Hollywood Hills, attended the auction with her husband and 8-year-old daughter. She paid $280 for a poster entitled “The Time Is Now/Women In Power” that shows the steps to the U.S. Capitol. Boxer was one of a handful of congresswomen who marched up those steps to demand investigation of Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Boxer features the scene prominently in her campaign.

McGraw said she liked Boxer, among other reasons, because she is a woman.

“I’m really tired of running this country for the glory of old guys instead of preparing the planet for the children that are following us,” said McGraw, a corporate finance attorney who is also lead singer in a feminist musical band called Chalice.

“Our issues are humanity’s issues.”