CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Seymour TV Ad Attacks Feinstein on Taxes and Crime

Firing the first salvo in what is expected to be a long and grueling campaign for the U.S. Senate, John Seymour aired a television commercial Monday that attacks opponent Dianne Feinstein as an insider who has favored higher taxes and lower criminal penalties.

Seymour, who has served in the Senate for the last 17 months, uses the 30-second spot to call for term limits, and he vows to “shake things up in Washington.”

Seymour and Democrat Feinstein won their parties’ nominations in the June 2 primary for the Senate seat that Seymour occupies. Seymour was appointed to the seat to replace then-Sen. Pete Wilson, who was elected governor.

The winner of the Seymour-Feinstein race in the fall general election will finish the remaining two years of Wilson’s term.

Feinstein’s campaign, responding to the ad, accused Seymour of using “cliches and half-truths” to shift attention from what it called the senator’s own lackluster record.

By releasing the ad barely two weeks after the primary, Seymour is clearly taking his cue from mentor Wilson, who defeated Feinstein in the hard-fought 1990 gubernatorial campaign.

In that race, Wilson used the first days of the general campaign to attack Feinstein’s record as mayor of San Francisco. He aired three different commercials within five days of the primary.

While Wilson launched an offensive, Feinstein vacationed, her campaign treasury drained by a difficult primary. Feinstein was forced into a defensive posture and did not air a television commercial until more than two months later. In the opinion of many political experts, she never quite recovered and went on to lose to Wilson by a narrow margin.

Seymour campaign manager Richard McBride conceded that there are comparisons that can be drawn between the two efforts. But the goal of the Seymour strategy, McBride said, is to “educate” the voters and show the contrasts between Seymour and Feinstein, both of whom practice generally moderate politics.

“Obviously we’re going to go out first and start explaining the differences,” McBride said. “It’s never too early in a campaign to do that. . . . It’s a long road.”

Seymour’s new commercial is a simple spot in which he speaks directly to the camera, ticking off elements of Feinstein’s record that he claims mark a sharp contrast to his own.

“This won’t be a pretty ad because it’s just me, John Seymour,” Seymour says in the spot, which is airing in most of the state--except Feinstein’s home base of the San Francisco Bay Area. McBride said the purchase of television time to air the ad is “substantial,” but declined to say how much.

As he did during the primary, Seymour is seeking to portray himself as the “outsider,” despite nearly 20 years in public office. Seymour supports term limits; Feinstein does not.

McBride said Feinstein is “definitely an insider” because of her years in office or as a candidate for higher office.

Responded Feinstein campaign manager Kam Kuwata: “It’s instructive that here’s a guy painting himself as an outsider, who is there (in the Senate) because of an insider back-room deal cut with his crony Pete Wilson.”

In an effort to bolster its claims, Seymour’s campaign points to numerous taxes raised by Feinstein during her tenure as mayor of San Francisco, from 1978-88, and before that as a county supervisor. Feinstein has said that the years she was mayor saw drastic cutbacks in federal support to America’s cities, forcing higher taxes to pay for basic services. Kuwata said Seymour, too, advocated raising some taxes during his tenure as city councilman and mayor of Anaheim, from 1974-82, and then as a state senator, including a 5% levy on admission to Disneyland, which was eventually withdrawn.

Seymour also cites Feinstein’s willingness to raise income taxes on Californians earning more than $200,000, a measure she once said she would agree to only after searching for other ways to cut the state budget.

Seymour bases his “soft-on-criminals” charge on Feinstein’s efforts in the early 1960s to reduce the median prison term of women felons. At the time, Feinstein served on the Women’s Board of Prison Terms.

Kuwata countered that Feinstein has proven she is tough on crime by putting more police officers on the streets of San Francisco, by favoring the current crime bill and supporting the death penalty.