Primary Factor: Power of Women in Politics : Quality female candidates outshone disgraceful TV ads

As with most California statewide elections, the results of Tuesday’s primary were decidedly mixed. But there is no doubt that the big winners were women.

Atop an impressive list of female victors are former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae). Aided by voter backlash against business-as-usual politics, they emerged as the Democratic nominees for the U.S. Senate in November’s election.

Of course, months of campaigning lie ahead. And when it’s all over, the voters could opt for their male Republican opponents. But for now, Feinstein, who will face Sen. John Seymour, and Boxer, who will face Bruce Herschensohn, have made important history. And they can celebrate the independence and open-mindedness of voters that make this state’s politics so hard to predict. A Times exit poll found, for example, that Feinstein and Boxer had solid support from men as well as women.

And, like earlier Senate races in Illinois and Pennsylvania where women candidates surprised male opponents, the California primaries are sure to be read in the Senate as another sign that its days as a cozy, mostly male club might be numbered. Anyone who remembers the painful confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, especially some senators’ treatment of Prof. Anita Hill, can only welcome such a change.

In key local races, a black woman--either state Sen. Diane Watson or attorney Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--is going to win the 2nd District supervisorial seat in a November runoff. We have endorsed Watson, but either woman would bring a fresh outlook to a powerful body that badly needs shaking up. One well-entrenched supervisor, Deane Dana, was forced into a runoff by a woman, Rolling Hills Mayor Gordana Swanson, in the coastal 4th District. And San Diego will send its first woman to Congress, from the 49th District, where Democrat Lynn Schenk and Republican Judy Jarvis emerged as the finalists.

In another noteworthy development, Asian-Americans made headway in California Assembly and congressional races. It is significant that most of those who made it into runoffs did so in districts where the percentage of the ethnic vote is not large. In Ventura County, Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi won the GOP primary and could become the first Asian-American elected to the Legislature since 1978.

Politics as usual is out: Some are even questioning the effectiveness of television advertising, especially negative “attack” ads. The most egregious example was state Controller Gray Davis’ deceptive effort to link Feinstein with Leona Helmsley, the controversial New York “hotel queen” recently imprisoned for tax evasion. The oft-repeated commercial was so utterly off base that it could haunt any future campaign by Davis--and deservedly so.

Even “positive” media extravaganzas were known to flop. A multimillion-dollar fund-raising apparatus and high-profile TV commercials didn’t translate into a Senate primary victory for Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica). So the size of campaign coffers and the ability to win aren’t inextricably linked after all. Now isn’t that something!