San Diego County Elections : Women Flex Muscles in County Races : Election: Schenk, Jarvis primary victories mean 49th Congressional District will likely be represented by a female.

The “Year of the Woman” made itself felt with a vengeance in San Diego elections this week, as apparent primary victories by Lynn Schenk and Judy Jarvis in the 49th Congressional District race all but ensured that the county will send its first woman ever to Congress next year.

With women winning several other congressional and state legislative primaries in San Diego County, the upcoming Schenk-Jarvis matchup underscored an unusually strong showing by female candidates in Tuesday’s primary.

“There’s no question that, finally, being a woman was a positive rather than a negative in politics,” said Schenk, who outdistanced her nearest competitor in the five-candidate 49th District Democratic primary by a more than 2-to-1 margin. “For decades, women had to be better just to get up to the starting line. But this year, the presumptions of confidence and effectiveness shifted to women.”

In other races, accountant Bea Herbert won a five-candidate Democratic primary in the 51st Congressional District in which she was the lone female, and Patsy Hockersmith topped two men to gain the Democratic nomination in the 66th Assembly District.

Two other women, Assemblywoman Carol Bentley and former Del Mar Mayor Ronnie Delaney, narrowly trailed in their Republican primaries in the 37th state Senate District and 76th Assembly District, respectively. However, with 53,500 absentee and other ballots remaining to be counted in San Diego, both were close enough to possibly overtake their opponents.

The success that women candidates experienced in San Diego mirrored a historic trend seen throughout California Tuesday, as victories by Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer marked the first time in more than 30 years that a woman had been a major party nominee for the U.S. Senate.

Although the unusually large number of women seeking office nationwide has caused 1992 to be dubbed the “Year of the Woman,” focusing greater attention than normal on candidates’ sex, some losing male candidates conceded that they underestimated the electoral clout that the issue would carry at the polls.

“All the major candidates totally missed the boat in recognizing the political impact of having a lone woman in this race,” said Alan Smith, the campaign manager of Ray Saatjian, who finished fourth behind Jarvis in the 10-candidate 49th District GOP primary.

“The men candidates scrambled to show that they were OK on abortion and women’s issues, and felt that was enough,” Smith added. “But a lot of voters, women and men, feel that it’s not where you stand on the issues, it’s that, if you’re a woman, you act and see things differently. It’s clear there was a solid bloc of voters in this election who felt that gender was an important criterion.”

With some absentee votes remaining to be counted, Jarvis led the crowded 49th District GOP field with 11,332 votes, followed by businessman Alan Uke with 9,207 votes, financial planner Skip Cox with 6,427 votes and Saatjian with 6,414 ballots. Dave Pierce, who had been thought to have a strategic advantage in being the only anti-abortion candidate among the 10 Republicans, now is in fifth place with 4,605 votes.

Schenk, meanwhile, outpolled lawyer Byron Georgiou, 29,323 to 13,472 votes, in the 49th District Democratic primary, with three other candidates being distant also-rans.

In San Diego County’s other congressional contests, incumbents Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad), Randy (Duke) Cunningham (R-Chula Vista) and Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) easily won renomination in their respective districts.

This fall, Packard will face Democrat Michael Farber in the 48th District, Cunningham will oppose Democrat Herbert in the new 51st District and Hunter’s major 52nd District opponent will be Democrat Janet Gastil. Minor-party candidates also will be on the November ballot in each district.

Because of the uncounted ballots, the outcome in the Democratic primary in the newly drawn 50th District remained uncertain Wednesday, with San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner holding a 1,025-vote lead--10,268 to 9,243--over state Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh. Former Rep. Jim Bates saw his attempt at a political comeback result in a third-place finish, with three other candidates rounding out the field.

Latino activist Tony Valencia held a comfortable lead over two other Republicans in the 50th District, but the GOP nomination is a dubious prize in a district with a 51%-35% Democratic edge among registered voters that makes victory in the Democratic primary tantamount to election.

The twin victories by Schenk and Jarvis, however, provided the focal point of much of the post-primary discussion over the congressional contests, largely because it sets the stage for a historic November race in which San Diego County will send a woman to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time ever.

Although Schenk, a San Diego Unified Port District commissioner and one-time cabinet member in the administration of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., was one of the front-runners in her primary from the start, Jarvis’ victory, assuming it holds up, was a major upset.

Outspent by up to 5-to-1 margins by other leading candidates, Jarvis, a nurse from Tierrasanta who raised about $50,000, was largely ignored by her opponents in the closing weeks of the race.

While Uke, Cox and Saatjian caustically attacked each other in forums and campaign ads, Jarvis remained seemingly lost in the 10-candidate Republican race, dismissed as a political novice with too little money or expertise to regard as a serious threat.

“I just loved it when I saw all those nasty flyers coming out at the end,” Jarvis said. “I thought, good, let them keep shooting each other in the foot, and I’ll just stay out of the way.”

Although she attributed her apparent victory to shrewd use of her limited resources, including campaigning door-to-door in 95 targeted precincts, Jarvis acknowledged that being the only female in the Republican primary was a major factor in the outcome.

“It wasn’t a gender issue aimed only at women, because many men were very supportive, too,” Jarvis said. “But I was campaigning on change, and, as women, we embody the change people want to see in politics.”

“The days of the cold, lonely fights of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when women were often laughed at as we tried to push for new opportunities, are over,” Schenk added. “No one’s laughing now. If people truly want someone to be an agent of change, I’m that person. And being a woman is part of that.”

Saatjian aide Smith, meanwhile, said that, although political insiders had been debating whether 1992 would, indeed, prove to be the “Year of the Woman” since Clarence Thomas’ controversial U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings last year, Tuesday’s results still “came like a bolt of lightning.”

In retrospect, Smith said, he has decided that what bothered many women--and men--about the Thomas hearings was not only the sexual harassment allegations lodged against him by law professor Anita Hill and some senators’ shoddy treatment of Hill, but the “sight of an all-male Judiciary Committee” weighing the charges.

“That’s the thing people want to change--they’re tired of seeing only male faces making the decisions,” Smith concluded. “Now, they’re going to get that change. If this does anything, it’s going to wake up a lot of men. Because I don’t think any of us saw this coming.”