‘92 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION : Senate Hopefuls Grab 3 Minutes of Fame : Congress: California’s Herschensohn and Seymour aren’t showcased as their rivals were at Democratic Convention.

Call them the C-Span twins.

California’s two Republican U.S. Senate candidates, incumbent Sen. John Seymour and Bruce Herschensohn, came to the Republican National Convention here hoping for the type of political boost their respective Democratic opponents, Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Barbara Boxer, got at the Democratic National Convention in July.

But while Feinstein and Boxer were showcased by their party during prime time television hours, Seymour and Herschensohn were simply part of a parade of other GOP Senate candidates from around the country who gave brief speeches to help kick off the convention Monday.

Each was given three minutes on the Republican national stage Monday. Their first and only opportunity to address the convention--and a national television audience--came and went just two hours after the proceedings started. That was noontime here, around 10 a.m. in California. C-Span, the public affairs network, delivered the sole live broadcast.

Republicans who were recovering from a weekend of parties and receptions still seemed to be getting their bearings when the two went on. Hundreds of delegates cheered the candidates from the floor of the Astrodome, but most of the seats on the six-levels of the massive facility were empty.

Herschensohn, who takes pride in his positive attitude, was all smiles after his speech, telling reporters he had no complaints. “Ronald Reagan wanted this time, but I got it,” he quipped. “They wanted me to speak an hour, but I said, ‘Three minutes, no more. I’m outta here.’ ”

A Los Angeles television and radio commentator before he began campaigning for the Senate, Herschensohn trailed Boxer by 18 percentage points in a statewide Field Poll that was taken after the Democratic Convention. He and Boxer are running for the seat being given up by incumbent Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston.

Seymour was running behind Feinstein by an identical 18-point margin in the same poll. He admitted before the convention that he needed all the exposure he could get to help close the margin. He said he asked party officials before the convention for an evening speaking slot, but was turned down.

After breaking with President Bush over anti-abortion language contained in the party platform, Seymour clearly was not getting any favors. “I’d like to have prime time, believe me,” he told reporters before he spoke. Still, Seymour said, it was an honor just to be invited to the podium.

During their speeches, the two Senate candidates stuck to familiar themes.

Seymour, after several days of criticizing the abortion language in the platform, touched only briefly on the subject.

“I’m pro-choice, pro-family and pro-jobs,” said Seymour, who was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Pete Wilson in January, 1991, to fill the seat Wilson gave up upon winning the governorship.

“To say I’m entirely happy with our party platform would be untrue. I, for one, believe it must be changed,” Seymour said.

Then Seymour quickly fell in line with the spirit of the convention, praising President Bush, attacking Democrats and calling for a GOP victory in November.

Seymour was trailed to the convention by a Feinstein campaign consultant, Bill Carrick, who obtained a prized credential that gave him access to the convention floor. Carrick said he didn’t think Seymour would be helped much by his appearance.

“Look how they treated him,” Carrick said. “They gave him a speaking time in late morning, a time designed not to get any coverage. He got put in the clutter period. He isn’t going to get any help at all.”

Herschensohn, who took the speaker’s podium a few minutes later, gave a characteristically serious speech, using literary metaphors, talking reverentially about the U.S. Constitution, and outlining what he said were “two conflicting philosophies of governance.”

His speech included a sharp jab at members of Congress, a warm-up for what is expected to be a more direct attack on Boxer later in the campaign. The congresswoman was one of the members of Congress who wrote checks from an overdrawn account in a private bank maintained for federal lawmakers.

Herschensohn said Congress heaped debt on taxpayers while using tax dollars to set up their own private bank, restaurants and gyms. In comments that drew loud applause, Herschensohn said that federal lawmakers used taxes to pay for “hair stylists for themselves and marble floors in elevators for themselves and grand pensions for themselves and mammoth pay raises for themselves.”

Herschensohn compared Democrats to an octopus that has its tentacles in taxpayers’ pockets, and Republicans to a protective eagle.

Despite their brief moments on the official Republican podium, Herschensohn and Seymour have been working hard to raise their visibility. They have held news conferences, attended numerous parties and set up several interviews on national news shows.

After his speech Monday, Herschensohn, an opponent of legalized abortion, went to a rally sponsored by the national Christian Coalition, where he was introduced by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. He also accepted an invitation to sit with Dan Quayle in the vice president’s box to take in the Monday night session.

Seymour has been getting as much mileage as he can from the dispute over the abortion language in the party platform, issuing statements, holding news conferences and appearing at abortion rights rallies.

Efforts to challenge the anti-abortion plank in the platform fizzled Monday.

Seymour appeared on the NBC “Today Show” Monday and said he was “disappointed but not too surprised” at the failure of GOP supporters of abortion rights to even launch a floor fight over the issue.

But then he amended his comments, saying, “I’m not disappointed. . . . We’ve set the foundation for ’96. This is not about George Bush. . . . It’s about the future of the Republican Party. If we ever want to become a majority party, then we need to have the platform aligned with majority opinion.”