CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Feinstein, Boxer Seek Out Latino Support

U. S. Senate candidates Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer appealed to Latinos for support Saturday, pledging to dump “trickle-down Republican economics” and bring more jobs and better schools to working-class people in California.

In separate appearances before the Mexican American Political Assn. in Santa Monica, the two Democrats bemoaned the state’s bleak economic condition and suggested that recovery would come only with a Democrat in the White House and two Democrats in the Senate from California.

“The situation in California economically is a serious one,” Feinstein said. “You cannot have one United States senator that will cancel out the vote of another United States senator. You need to have two people dedicated to change, that will be able to work together and effect that change.”

In an interview before her address to MAPA, Boxer said the state’s mounting economic woes have been particularly tough for Latinos and other minorities. According to the 1990 Census, about 26% of the state’s 30 million residents are Latino.

“When there is high unemployment it hits our minority communities harder,” Boxer said. “When our education system slips it hits the minority community harder because they count on the public schools to help them grab that American dream.”

Organizers said neither of the Republicans in the Senate races--U. S. Sen. John Seymour and Bruce Herschensohn--accepted invitations to address the group, which is one of the nation’s oldest Latino political associations. Although officially bipartisan, MAPA has a history of supporting Democrats and the group voted Saturday night to endorse Feinstein and Boxer.

Both Democratic candidates entered the weekend of campaigning riding high from good news in the polls. While cautioning against overconfidence at a campaign stop in Century City, an ebullient Feinstein coupled news of her “substantial lead” in the polls with an announcement that she had become a grandmother for the first time.

“If none of us do it, she is going to be the first woman President of the United States,” Feinstein gushed, referring to her new granddaughter.

In the contest to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston, a Los Angeles Times Poll released Wednesday showed Boxer leading Herschensohn by 19 percentage points, and a California Poll released Saturday put the Boxer lead at 22 points. In the race to fill the remaining two years of the term vacated by Republican Pete Wilson when he was elected governor, the Times Poll showed Feinstein leading Seymour by 16 percentage points, while the California Poll placed the margin at 20 points.

Both Democratic Senate hopefuls repeated their messages of change on Saturday and emphasized the need to look beyond the “politics that divide us” and concentrate instead on “the politics of unity.”

In her address to the MAPA convention, Feinstein pledged to be a senator who “isn’t going to look for the differences among us but the similarities.”

At a $150-per-plate fund-raiser earlier in the day, former Rep. Barbara Jordan of Texas also stressed the need for change, telling about 500 Feinstein supporters: “This is our moment; we can blow it or we can seize it.”

In a rousing partisan speech, Jordan attacked Republicans, particularly those from California.

“Even though you have sent many Californians to national office, you have not always sent your best,” she said. “And as you well know, we are still trying to recover from some of them.”

GOP CONVENTION PROTEST: Democrats and Republican women advocating abortion rights disrupted the state GOP convention. A26