Feinstein, Boxer Start Out Strong : Politics: Experts say both women emerge from the primary with the edge over their male GOP opponents. But some expect the playing field to level off before the election.

The conventional wisdom of January has become the debunked political myth of June: that California’s voters were unlikely to nominate two women to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992 let alone elect two Democratic women to fill both of the Senate seats in November.

Today, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are basking in political stardom after impressive June 2 primary election victories over well-financed and well-known male opponents. Most political experts now give them the edge over their Republican foes, Sen. John Seymour and conservative commentator Bruce Herschensohn.

Feinstein is better known among voters than Seymour, struggling to come out of the shadow of Pete Wilson, who narrowly beat Feinstein in the governor’s race two years ago.

Boxer faces a Republican on the extreme right of his party. Although Boxer is virtually as far to the left among Democrats, she has a strong abortion rights record that is likely to appeal to far more California voters than Herschensohn’s anti-abortion views in a year when abortion could be a pivotal issue.

California Poll founder Mervin Field said both women emerged relatively unscathed from their primary battles. Boxer weathered attacks about overdrafts she wrote on the House of Representatives bank. Feinstein did not seem to be harmed by allegations of improper reporting of millions of dollars of campaign contributions and spending in her 1990 contest for governor.

“Maybe right now we’ve got a new form of gender Teflon,” Field said.

No statewide polls have been conducted since the primary, so the experts’ assessments are based on circumstantial evidence, experience and instinct. But a recent independent Orange County poll showed Boxer running slightly ahead of Herschensohn in the state’s GOP bastion. Feinstein trailed Seymour by only 7% in his home county. In both races, substantial numbers of GOP women were defecting.

The political tea leaves may favor the two Democrats now, but experts also know how dangerous it is to predict in June what happens in November. Thus, the sages hedge their bets by forecasting two hard-fought Senate campaigns that could go down to the wire by Election Day on Nov. 3.

There is no uncertainty about the importance of the election, the first in state history in which the winners will fill both U.S. Senate seats simultaneously.

The national parties are throwing resources into California. Spending for the two races could run as high as $40 million. California is pivotal to any Republican hope of capturing control of the U.S. Senate. A victory by the two Democrats could anchor that party’s majority and propel Feinstein and Boxer into national political celebrity and influence.

A Seymour victory would enhance his stature in the Senate as someone able to win election on his own--not just someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time for political appointment.

Herschensohn would be a rarity in Washington: an archconservative senator from California likely to immerse himself in national security matters and foreign affairs rather than high-visibility campaigns opposing abortion and gay rights.

Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “I think the outcome of the elections in California will have more to do with the future of the American Congress than the outcome of the elections in any other state.

“We all talk about changing American government, but very seldom do we have a chance to live and vote in a state that has an opportunity to actually make those changes,” added Gramm, whose committee assists and coordinates Senate campaigns nationally.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, the only Democratic woman in the Senate, said the election of more women can make “a tremendous difference.”

“We have to make clear that the movement we represent is not women versus men. It is about change,” she said. “By electing more women to the Senate, I believe we can bring about change. . . . Congress can’t go on playing insider games while the economy grinds down and people’s lives grow desperate.”

Managers for the two GOP campaigns believe that the playing field will even out as the novelty of having two women Senate primary winners fades.

But the impact of potential events could benefit the Democratic women, particularly a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion expected today. Any decision that is perceived as undermining a woman’s right to an abortion is likely to help women candidates in California, the “most pro-choice state,” said William Schneider, a political analyst for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

And if Ross Perot voters flood the polls to shake up the system, that too might aid Feinstein and Boxer because women are viewed as “the ultimate outsiders,” Schneider said.

Field said abortion is the one issue that could grip and move voters this fall. Any change ordered by the Supreme Court “is going to cause a big storm,” added Field, whose poll this spring found that 75% of voters surveyed either oppose any change in the state’s liberal abortion law or want abortions more readily available.

Schneider and Field also challenged another old political saw that some believe might work against Boxer and Feinstein: that California voters tend to elect a Republican to one Senate seat and a Democrat to the other to balance things.

“They vote for who they like--period,” Schneider said.

In fact, the two Senate seats often have been split between the parties, but Field said, “it’s all happenstance.”

The stage for California’s first dual Senate campaign was set by Wilson’s resignation from the Senate in January, 1991, after his gubernatorial victory over Feinstein. The law allowed Wilson, as governor, to appoint a successor through the next general election. The winner this year will serve the final two years of Wilson’s term. The seat will return to its usual six-year election cycle.

Wilson selected an old friend and philosophical comrade, Seymour, an Orange County state senator, real estate man and former mayor of Anaheim. Seymour, 54, easily won the primary over conservative Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton.

Now, Seymour faces Feinstein, 59, the former San Francisco supervisor and mayor who swept to a 58%-33% primary victory over state Controller Gray Davis.

The other election is for a six-year term in the seat held since 1969 by Democrat Alan Cranston, who is retiring.

The contest matches Boxer, 51, a former Marin County supervisor and five-term member of the House of Representatives, and Herschensohn, 59, a longtime conservative radio and television commentator from Los Angeles. Herschensohn never has held public office, but was a filmmaker for the U.S. Information Agency in the 1960s and a domestic policy adviser in the Richard M. Nixon White House.

When Boxer began running, before Cranston announced that he would retire, former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. was favored to win the Democratic Senate nomination. But Brown ran for President and Boxer mounted an impressive grass-roots and women’s network campaign, including a formidable fund-raising effort. She defeated Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy 44% to 31% with Rep. Mel Levine running third at 22%.

Herschensohn and Rep. Tom Campbell of Palo Alto waged the most bitter primary. Herschensohn said Campbell was too liberal for most Republicans. Campbell said Herschensohn was too conservative to win in November. Herschensohn won 38% to 36%. Sonny Bono was third with 17%.

Both fall contests provide intriguing differences in philosophy, politics and personality.

Feinstein versus Seymour is a battle between seasoned pros who are considered moderates in their parties. Many observers believe that the outcome will hinge more on campaign style, experience and nuance than on policy schisms. Still, they differ sharply on enough issues that the contest provides a clear conservative-liberal choice.

For real ideological fireworks, however, Boxer-Herschensohn is the headliner. Both are adept debaters. Neither shrinks from a scrap. Neither will compromise bedrock political beliefs: Boxer in a vigorous federal government that helps people and guides the economy, and Herschensohn in a radical paring back of the federal role in American life.

Boxer campaigns as a fighter who would wipe away the cobwebs of encrusted male leadership in the Senate. Herschensohn portrays himself as a conservative in the mold of the Founding Fathers, who would be shocked by the intrusive government that sprawls far beyond the intent of their Constitution.

Boxer wants big cuts in foreign military aid, using the savings to revive domestic programs. Herschensohn opposes any defense cuts. The world still is too dangerous, he says.

Abortion promises to be a constant flash point between Herschensohn and Boxer. Herschensohn had proposed that Congress overturn Roe vs. Wade, but now says he believes that the Supreme Court--properly--will do so itself before long.

Boxer can be expected to campaign strongly on her abortion rights position. She frequently attacks the Senate Judiciary Committee’s handling of the hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and the way it dealt with the sexual harassment allegations brought against Thomas by law professor Anita Hill.

After the primary victory parties, the four victorious campaigns retreated to headquarters for reorganization, strategizing and a new round of fund raising.

Seymour is the only candidate to take the public offensive, with a television ad attacking Feinstein’s record on taxation and crime and trying to paint her as a political insider who will not back term limits. Even though Seymour has been in public life for 14 years, he portrays himself as an outsider with the guts “to shake things up in Washington.”

The Feinstein campaign branded the ad, financed by Gramm’s committee, as “a piece of trash” and so far has declined to respond in kind. Superficially, the situation is similar to that of June, 1990, when Feinstein emerged as the Democratic nominee for governor.

The rested, well-financed Wilson began assaulting Feinstein on television. Broke and her campaign exhausted, she was unable to fight back. Feinstein said that was a low point in her campaign from which she never fully recovered.

This year, Feinstein is working from a position of strength, her aides said. They have the financial resources, but do not believe that the Seymour ad is effective enough to warrant a television ad in response now.

Kam Kuwata, Feinstein’s campaign manager, said: “What we face is somebody who is quite frankly not that well known (Seymour) versus Dianne, who is very well known. . . . I haven’t found that John Seymour has a coherent message that says: ‘I want to be senator because. . . .’ The message is wanting.”

Feinstein is prepared to use the abortion issue against Seymour, who switched his position in 1989--while getting ready to run for lieutenant governor--from being anti-abortion to favoring abortion rights. Kuwata is seeking to plant the idea that Seymour has “flip-flopped” again. “On the most critical vote on choice, he supported Clarence Thomas” for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, Kuwata said.

Seymour campaign manager Richard McBride believes that Seymour will hold his own on abortion.

“We’re pro-choice, and she’s pro-choice,” he said. Although some analysts argue that the abortion issue always favors a female candidate, McBride said: “I’m not sure that it does.”

McBride said that voters will have a complete image of Seymour and Feinstein by Nov. 3. “I think they are going to see a great contrast, a clear choice of what we are for and what she is for.”