CAIFORNIA ELECTIONS : U.S. SENATE : 4 Candidates Stay on the Road in Hunt for Votes

Pressing her marathon campaign tour into Southern California, U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Boxer on Thursday portrayed her rival, Republican Bruce Herschensohn, as a man of extreme views, while he hammered home his theme of limited government before friendly Central Valley audiences.

In the other Senate race, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, enjoying a comfortable lead, rallied fellow Democrats to “get out the vote” as opponent Sen. John Seymour stumped through Northern California at television stations in Oakland and defense subcontractors in San Jose.

In a move to shore up his base as election day draws near, Herschensohn spoke to crowds from Bakersfield to Stockton, traveling in a twin engine prop plane through conservative farm country. Eschewing the long-winded issue speeches he favored early in the campaign, the former television commentator reduced his message to a few simple sentences.

“It is about the role of the federal government,” he told supporters at Republican Party headquarters in a Fresno strip mall. “We feel the role of the federal government should be as limited as possible. The other side feels it should be enlarged, expanded and made more expensive.”

Stop after stop, Herschensohn warned voters to beware of politicians making promises. “My only promise is that I will follow the Constitution of the United States,” he pledged at a breakfast rally in Bakersfield.

On the second day of his three-day statewide campaign swing, Herschensohn announced to a small gathering at a Salinas country club that a Field Poll to be released today gave him 43 points to Boxer’s 44, essentially a dead heat.

The Marin County congresswoman, meanwhile, continued her 33-hour, 14-city nonstop tour, starting the day by meeting with supporters at an all-night diner in Ventura at 1:30 a.m. Boxer then proceeded to the downtown Los Angeles produce mart where she shook hands with workers arriving for a pre-dawn shift.

Forced to take the defensive after Herschensohn’s negative television ads eroded her once-commanding lead, Boxer used a series of campaign stops to hit back at the former aide to Richard Nixon. She attempted to paint him as an extremist with right-wing views who, along with kindred spirits such as Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), spells trouble for California.

“He would be dangerous in the United States Senate because he is, in fact, from the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, and the extreme right wing of the Republican Party has had its day,” Boxer told Democratic Party activists at a breakfast in Carlsbad.

Later, after a visit to an elementary school in Lynwood, she assailed some of Herschensohn’s more conservative positions, including his opposition to abortion and gun control and his willingness to permit offshore oil drilling.

“Reasonable people in California don’t want a United States senator who wants to make abortion a criminal act,” she said.

“They don’t want a senator who’s going to say, ‘Our coast--to heck with it. Let’s throw it away to the oil companies.’ They don’t want a senator who says everyone should be able to carry an Uzi. . . . So the challenge for us is to let people know these are his views.”

Looking upbeat and energetic, despite the grueling schedule, Boxer said she believed her campaign had regained momentum and was beginning to move up again in the polls. She conceded that she had taken a drubbing when Herschensohn’s ads went unchallenged for two full weeks before she started to air her own commercials.

“Our people woke up and now we’ve got the momentum back,” she told reporters in Lynwood. “We’re on the rise in the polls and we’re really moving in the right direction.”

On Thursday, Boxer also began airing a new television commercial entitled “Wacky” that takes Herschensohn to task for the same “extreme views” that Boxer highlighted as she campaigned. The ad was the latest in what has become an increasingly scathing exchange between the two candidates, whose views are about as far apart as it gets for major party candidates.

Questioned in Bakersfield about the negative tone of the campaign, Herschensohn sought to blame Boxer. He said he was left with no choice after his opponent rejected his challenge to travel the state with him and debate.

“What other choice do I have, except sit back and lose the election?” he said. “She could have made this the greatest campaign in contemporary political history.”

Herschensohn used the tour to pick up a few donations. At a fund-raiser in Visalia held by the brother of campaign manager Ken Khachigian, about 35 growers paid $500 each to have lunch with Herschensohn.

Throughout the Central Valley--it was Herschensohn’s seventh trip there this campaign--the Republican candidate’s opposition to environmental regulations and Democratic-sponsored water reform have made him a local favorite. The roadside near the tiny Visalia airport is lined with Herschensohn billboards.

Boxer and Herschensohn are hoping to replace Sen. Alan Cranston, who is retiring. In the other Senate race, Feinstein and Seymour are competing to fill out the final two years of the term vacated by Pete Wilson when he became governor.

Feinstein is spending the final days before the election in a get-out-the-vote effort. She met Thursday with party activists in Pasadena and today headed for El Centro. She was also attending a final fund-raiser in San Francisco.

Seymour’s campaign advisers said they believe they are making up ground on Feinstein. H.D. Palmer, a Seymour spokesman, said the campaign is doing overnight polling, tracking 200 to 250 potential voters.

“Our overnight tracking had us 9 points down, 49% to 40%. Two weeks ago we were 16% back,” Palmer said.

Stall is traveling with Boxer, Murphy with Herschensohn. Times staff writers Douglas P. Shuit and Tracy Wilkinson also contributed to this report, which was written by Wilkinson.