COLUMN ONE : Will ’92 Be Year of the Woman? : Amid anti-incumbency fervor, they could gain a great deal as political outsiders. But will Californians make history and elect two female senators? Pollsters say it may be asking too much.

Amid all the fanfare and predictions that 1992 is the year of the woman in American politics, nowhere is the test greater than in California.

The state has the rare chance to elect not one, but two, women to the U.S. Senate. And the Senate candidates are merely at the head of a long line of women running for federal and local offices in California--more than in any state in the nation . There are so many, in fact, that California has been chosen as a top priority for national lobbying organizations that work to put women in public office.

Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, enjoys a comfortable lead in her race for nomination to one Senate seat; Rep. Barbara Boxer is in a tight contest for nomination to the other.

Both candidates emphasize the need for more women in high elected offices. Boxer, especially, plays the “gender card” with relish, drumming up outrage over the treatment of Anita Hill at Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearing and appearing recently at a fund-raiser with “Thelma & Louise” co-star Geena Davis, who praised Boxer as a “she-ro.”

Although Feinstein and Boxer have been tainted by potential scandals involving finances, in neither case does it seem to have substantially eroded the candidate’s support, according to recent polling by The Times.

What Feinstein and Boxer may have to fight even harder is the anticipated resistance among some voters to electing two women senators.

“When it gets down to two women (in the general election) . . . a residual bias that has existed for some time could come into play,” said pollster Mervin D. Field. Some voters, he said, are likely to have reservations about making such a great change in a single year.

And, after the Los Angeles riots, Feinstein and Boxer must reassure those voters who might have doubts about whether women officeholders are tough enough on crime. Analysts say women candidates historically have not fared as well when law-and-order was the issue of the day.

Both Feinstein and Boxer are Democrats. That too may pose an obstacle in a state that has often chosen a senator from each party.

Nevertheless, there is a new, national momentum. Women’s organizations across the country hope this is their golden moment in history, the year for substantial gains by female politicians.

In addition to the two women running for Senate in California, 35 women are vying for congressional seats and scores more are seeking state and local offices. Nationally, 19 women are running for the Senate and 152 for the House.

Women’s groups point to a convergence of circumstances. In a year of rampant anti-incumbency, women can position themselves as the quintessential outsiders, the most likely agents of change. In a year when the Cold War has ended, domestic issues such as health care and education, where women are widely regarded as stronger, move to the forefront.

With reapportionment, more seats are open, creating opportunity for new candidates. And perhaps most important, women are giving money to women’s campaigns like never before.

As expectations for women candidates grow, all eyes turn to California.

“California is going to be the bellwether state for women in American politics,” said Harriett Woods, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

“We could have a critical mass of women coming from California all by itself, let alone the rest of the country. . . . What’s happening in California, as so often is the case, is just a more glorified version of, and a little ahead of, what’s happening elsewhere.”

Woods believes California voters may be willing to vote for two women senators because these two women are so different.

Indeed, the styles of Feinstein and Boxer are studies in contrast. The better-known Feinstein, 58, is a tall, cool-tempered, reassuring figure who many consider commanding but not threatening. Boxer, 51, is a small woman who is usually seen as a pugnacious, energetic politician who elicits strong emotions from her audiences. Feinstein cut her political teeth in the executive branch of government as mayor of one of California’s largest cities; Boxer is experienced in the legislative arena, and is serving her fifth term as a congresswoman.

More than in her unsuccessful 1990 run for governor, Feinstein is courting women voters and playing up the importance of electing a woman--this particular woman--to the Senate. She often wears a brooch shaped like shattered glass to represent the breaking of the “glass ceiling,” the invisible barrier that many women believe keeps them from reaching the highest levels of the corporate and political worlds.

“Two percent may be OK for milk,” Feinstein tells audiences in emphatic yet measured tones, “but it’s not OK for the Senate.” The reference is to the fact that only two of 100 members of the Senate are women.

But Feinstein does not place the same passionate emphasis on feminism that Boxer does.

“ I ,” Boxer proclaims with dramatic flare to her crowds, “am going to become (Sen.) Jesse Helms’ worst nightmare.”

Or, in describing the ineffectiveness of male members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Thomas-Hill dispute:

“They couldn’t help her because they didn’t get it ,” she tells a gathering of Democratic Party women, using a slightly hoarse voice coated in affected anguish.

“And they didn’t understand it.

“And they didn’t feel it.

“Had there been one woman on that committee, it would have been different!

“You know it!,” she shouts as the crowd erupts in applause. “ You know it !”

Rhetoric and style aside, the two women are close on many issues, although Feinstein is generally more moderate in her views than Boxer. Both advocate the right to choose an abortion; both have economic programs that emphasize jobs in California above spending overseas; both favor the death penalty.

Boxer has long been the darling of California feminists; some critics contend that Feinstein joined the ranks of feminism a little late in life.

Boxer has endorsed Feinstein over her opponent, state Controller Gray Davis, but Feinstein has not endorsed Boxer, saying her two opponents, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and Rep. Mel Levine, have also been friends and supporters over the years.

When the issue of whether California will elect two women senators is raised, Boxer is insulted at the mere question.

“The press will come up to us . . . and they’ll say: ‘Tell me, how could two women be elected to the United States Senate from the same state?’ ” Boxer told one audience.

“To which we reply: Did you ever ask that question of any man? Does anyone shove a microphone under Gray Davis’ nose and say: ‘If Leo McCarthy gets the nomination, do you think you both can win?’

“I don’t think so!” she concluded to roars from the audience.

The Times, in polling conducted last week, found that 61% of registered Democrats considered it important to vote for a woman for Senate, although only three-fourths of these said they planned to vote for Boxer or Feinstein.

Field, director of the California Poll, said segments of the electorate may be in conflict about voting for two women in the general election because of perceived similarities between Feinstein and Boxer. In addition to being women, both are from Northern California and are Jewish. Furthermore, he believes the novelty of two women senators may simply be more than many voters can handle.

But Field believes resistance to voting for two women may be overcome by the growing public revulsion toward status-quo politics, an attitude that probably favors women.

“The old conventional wisdom was people wouldn’t vote for any woman; the new conventional wisdom is they will only vote for one woman,” said Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Michael S. Dukakis and political science professor at USC.

“This comes from the conventional way of looking at politics, which says it’s a man’s game. . . . The assumption is women are so unique and disfavored that the most you can expect is people will vote for one. I’m not sure it’s true for male voters, and I’m pretty sure it’s not true for women voters.”

Moreover, a significant segment of voters may choose women out of solidarity and with the goal of electing women, say pollsters. The most recent Times Poll showed 17% of registered Democrats supporting both Feinstein and Boxer.

Because it is so rare that a state elects two senators in a single year--it is unprecedented in California history--there is little basis for comparisons. Analysts in search of some historical instruction on the fate of women point to Kansas, where voters in 1990 simultaneously sent women to the Senate, Congress and the governor’s mansion--the first such triumvirate in American history.

Still, argue some political analysts, gender may play an important role.

Many male Democratic voters, torn between conflicting urges to be “politically correct” by voting for a woman, yet reluctant to cede two major seats to women, could very well split their vote along sex lines, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the Claremont Graduate School’s Center for Politics and Policy.

“If that happens, it is quite possible the beneficiary will be Dianne Feinstein,” Jeffe said. “She is perceived as less intense, less strident . . . She has paid her dues. There is an image there, and it is not threatening to men. Barbara is an unknown quantity.”

According to The Times Poll, Feinstein is drawing significantly more support from women than men, beating Davis by 3 to 1 among women but just 3 to 2 among men. Boxer was faring virtually the same with women and men.

Some analysts believe that fallout from the Los Angeles riots, especially the emphasis on tougher law enforcement as the principal solution, could hurt California’s women candidates. Although The Times Poll has indicated that this is not the case, some analysts point to an old stereotype that portrays women as stronger on social issues but weaker when it comes to waging war or cracking down on lawlessness.

“There is a real concern that the riots will become the Willie Horton of this campaign . . . (playing into) the notion that women can’t handle that sort of thing,” social policy analyst Madeleine Stoner said.

The specter of going to war against Saddam Hussein in the late summer and fall of 1990, some analysts argued, contributed to Feinstein’s narrow loss to then-Sen. Pete Wilson in their race for governor.

In this election, however, Feinstein and Boxer are seeking legislative, rather than executive, offices. Also, both say they have demonstrated their ability to be tough on lawbreakers--Feinstein as mayor of San Francisco, Boxer by sponsoring anti-crime legislation.

Perhaps not coincidentally, both Feinstein and Boxer have opponents who this month began strong law-and-order pitches in their television advertising, a tack seemingly out of character with those candidates’ progressive records.

Yet Jeffe, Stoner and others caution that much depends on how events surrounding the civil unrest are interpreted. If voters see the riots, at least in part, as an expression of hopelessness and outrage, for which the cure is jobs, better opportunity and reversal of the status quo, women candidates could benefit.

“If the President, the mayor, the chief of police--all men in suits--continue to make fools of themselves, all bets are off,” Jeffe said. “There is no clearer message of change than voting out the men.”

Potentially the most serious threats to Feinstein and Boxer’s candidacies are their financial problems. Historically, many voters have harbored prejudices about whether women can really do math, and women are often considered vulnerable in the area of financial management, said Jeffe and other political analysts.

Boxer became embroiled in the House bank scandal when it was revealed she wrote 143 overdrafts on her House checking account. Feinstein is being sued by state elections officials for alleged improper reporting of $8 million in campaign contributions and expenditures during her gubernatorial race.

Despite these problems, polling shows Feinstein practically walking away with her primary race, while Boxer is holding her own in her contest.

The number of women candidates in California is due in no small part to recruitment efforts by the National Organization for Women, the Fund for the Feminist Majority and others. California also had a sizable base of women in public office, skilled in the art of politics and fund raising, to tap into.

Several women’s organizations last week launched the next phase of their campaign: They set up phone banks, planned rallies and will walk precincts on behalf of Feinstein, Boxer and the state’s other women candidates.

“Is California a sign for the future, or is it a fluke year?” asked Woods, of the National Women’s Political Caucus. “That’s why we have to run scared. We have to seize upon this opportunity to take a giant step . . . not the baby steps” of the past.