Candidates Barnstorm State in Senate Races : Election: The Orange County vote is likely to be crucial in deciding the outcome of historic dual campaigns.

By TRACY WILKINSON and DEAN E. MURPHY

Nov. 3, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The campaign for California’s historic dual Senate race ended Monday with Orange County native son John Seymour and Republican Bruce Herschensohn stumping in traditional GOP strongholds while Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer pledged to work as “a team for change.”

The votes of more than 11 million Californians--1.1 million more than in the last presidential election in 1988--are expected to be cast, many at 25,914 polling places across the state today, officials predicted. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The weather was expected to encourage a high turnout, with forecasters predicting a warm Election Day, sunny and dry throughout California.

Orange County is likely to be a crucial factor in deciding the two races for U.S. Senate since Republican candidates have needed about 60% support from their GOP base to offset California’s Democratic territories. Both Seymour, a former mayor of Anaheim, and Herschensohn, whose campaign is based in Newport Beach, have made strong appeals for support in California’s most solidly Republican county.

As a strategic focal point, Orange County is likely to play a key role in a number of other races today.

The county has been the subject of national political attention in the presidential contest since recent polls have shown local voters divided between President Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, creating speculation about whether a Democratic nominee could carry the state’s Republican stronghold for the first time in 56 years.

In races for the state Legislature and Congress, Orange County voters will also choose more than a dozen candidates to send to Washington and Sacramento. All of the incumbent Republicans are favored to win reelection.

On the local level, voters in the county’s two largest cities--Anaheim and Santa Ana--will also choose among candidates for two hotly contested mayoral races.

Monday, in the statewide races for the U.S. Senate, the four candidates barnstormed throughout the state for last-minute support.

Feinstein, strongly favored over opponent Seymour, and Boxer, locked in a tight race with conservative television commentator Herschensohn, flew from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo to San Francisco in a final, election eve push for votes. Seymour and Herschensohn, in a departure from customary GOP togetherness, campaigned separately.

“I truly believe that the people of this state will lead the movement: The status quo must go!” Feinstein said in a boisterous pep rally in West Hollywood meant, in part, to promote the election of two women senators.

“The people in this state want a team for change.”

Seymour, campaigning in Rancho Cucamonga, countered: “I think what Californians are really concerned about in this election are jobs and the future,” he said, insisting his campaign still hoped for an upset.

In addition to the presidential and U.S. Senate races, Californians will elect 52 members of Congress and 100 members of the state Legislature--all 80 members of the Assembly and half of the 40 state senators. Democrat Bill Clinton is expected to win the state’s 54 electoral votes, but partisan battles for control of the Assembly and the congressional delegation were being waged up until the last minute.

The ballot also includes 13 statewide propositions, including controversial right-to-die, health insurance, welfare cuts, budget powers, and congressional term limits initiatives.

It is the first time in the state’s history that both Senate seats are on the same ballot. Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, and Seymour, the appointed incumbent, are competing to fill the last two years of the term vacated by Pete Wilson when he became governor.

Boxer and Herschensohn are vying for the six-year seat held by retiring Sen. Alan Cranston. Their tight race continued to attract the most attention.

Appearing tired but determined, Herschensohn attended an early morning airport rally in El Centro before flying to San Diego for a luncheon speech before the City Club. He discussed his flat tax proposal and warned a group of Huntington Beach students that the nation’s huge deficit is tantamount to stealing from future generations.

“My generation has stolen from you and your kids, when you have them,” he told an auditorium of about 150 students. “I am sorry because it is a dirty trick. . . . We have become, by law, common thieves. We have been signing your name on credit cards.”

At the San Diego luncheon, Herschensohn again faced questions about the disclosure Friday that he visited a nude dance club and buys adult magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse.

A woman in the audience, who described herself only as a life-long Republican, asked Herschensohn how he could reconcile such behavior with his strong support from the religious right.

“I believe in people having the right to do what they want,” Herschensohn said. “My protest has been against the National Endowment for the Arts because people aren’t doing what they want. What if you don’t want to finance pornography?”

Asked by the woman if he considers Playboy and Penthouse to be pornographic, Herschensohn said he did not know. “It depends on the edition of Playboy or Penthouse,” he said. “I mean, I just don’t want to say that with absolute certainty. I don’t know. It depends on what you’re looking for. Nor do I want to get into a discussion of it.”

Later, at a news conference, Herschensohn, who has embraced the GOP “family values” platform, appeared to acknowledge that some of his views do not jibe with the philosophy and tenets of the religious right, which has helped to raise money for his candidacy.

He said that as long as adult magazines are kept out of children’s hands, and as long as localities are allowed to control the distribution, then he would have to disagree with those who would ban Playboy, Penthouse and similar publications.

“I don’t believe in censorship,” he said. “I believe very much in ensuring children don’t get a hold of these things. But when you are old enough, when you are an adult, you should be able to make your own decisions.”

On Sunday, Herschensohn had defended his decision to patronize the Seventh Veil nude club in Hollywood with his girlfriend and another couple, and said he did not see anything hypocritical in the action.

“Look, we’re no prudes,” Herschensohn said. “And we thought it would be fun and it was.”

Herschensohn and his campaign manager, Ken Khachigian, have accused Boxer of orchestrating the eleventh-hour revelation as an attempt to smear the former Richard M. Nixon aide just as he was drawing even with Boxer in the polls. However, they have presented no proof.

The accusations against Herschensohn were aired by Bob Mulholland, a top-ranking state Democratic Party official who was suspended for acting without party authorization.

Boxer has denied having anything to do with making the disclosure, and she was forced to do so again Monday when questioned by reporters.

“His private life is his private life,” she said. “I want to talk about his public life, his positions.”

Boxer, joining Feinstein at the West Hollywood rally and on the fly-around to Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo and San Francisco, said the “clear difference” between her liberal views and Herschensohn’s conservative views opposing abortion and favoring off-shore oil drilling should be the basis upon which voters cast their ballots.

In urging supporters to get out the vote, Boxer said she would end the era of “right-wing politics--where ideology blocks progress.”

“We can go back to the days of darkness with Bruce Herschensohn,” she said, as the crowd interrupted her with shouts of “Never!” . . . “Or do we want a fighter for the people? We have a clear choice between a fighter and a teammate for Dianne, or an extremist who is out of touch with California.”

With Boxer’s once commanding lead eroded to nearly nothing in several polls, Feinstein and Democratic Party officials were eager to extend some coattails to the Marin County congresswoman. Team was the catchword of the day, and Feinstein referred to herself and Boxer as the “new Cagney and Lacey.”

Given a 14-point lead over Seymour in last week’s Field Poll, Feinstein positively beamed with confidence. At the West Hollywood appearance, she joked with Boxer and seemed to relish the chants of “Dianne! Dianne!” that filled a crowded campaign headquarters on Santa Monica Boulevard.

She urged followers to elect “a team that will give us an economic growth strategy, an invest-in-America plan, pass a freedom of choice act and pass unpaid medical family leave.”

Later, at San Francisco’s Delancey Street, Feinstein reflected on the last four years of traveling the campaign trail, from her grueling but unsuccessful bid for the governor’s office in 1990 to the eve of what she hoped was victory.

“For me this is a cumulation of four years, if you can believe it, on the campaign trail,” she told a wildly cheering crowd of supporters. “Visiting every one of our 58 counties. Seeing in Technicolor the California Dream, seeing where it’s holding together and seeing where it’s falling apart.

“And let me tell you, there is no issue in this campaign as profound as the No. 1 family value of this country--a job.” Seymour, meanwhile, was hopscotching from the Inland Empire to San Jose, San Diego and finally home turf in Orange County. He spoke to supporters at an aerospace factory in Rancho Cucamonga, and told reporters his campaign was “still looking for an upset.”

“The voters of California are very independent people,” Seymour said, discounting the expectation that a big victory for Bill Clinton will help Democratic Senate candidates. “They vote for the candidate based on where they stand on the issues. That’s what they’ll do tomorrow.”

Speaking to factory workers, Seymour said:

“You have a clear choice tomorrow when you go to the polls. . . . One answer for the future is more government in our lives, more government direction, more taxes, more federal mandates and more programs. Or, if you support John Seymour and vote for John Seymour, what you are going to get, I promise you, is less taxes, less government in your face and in your lives.”

In other Orange County races, the four incumbent congressmen on the ballot are favored for reelection. But Democrats have mounted a lively challenge in an open seat in the northern part of the county between state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) and Fullerton City Councilwoman Molly McClanahan.

But the most hotly contested race in Orange County is a $1-million slugfest in the 69th Assembly District between incumbent Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) and Republican challenger Jo Ellen Allen, a conservative darling of the GOP and California president of Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly’s national anti-feminist organization.

Umberg bashed Allen repeatedly with hard-hitting campaign mail, assailing her conservative Christian beliefs and dredging up a variety of lawsuits filed against the challenger’s businessman husband, including one for failing to promptly pay more than $14,000 in back rent they owed on their former home in a plush area of Newport Beach.

The assemblyman, who has spent more than $600,000 in the race, also tried to woo Republican voters in the central Orange County district with election-eve mailers financed by the California Democratic Party that picture him with Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Another featured Umberg shaking hands with screen muscle man Arnold Schwarzenegger beside the headline “Terminator, Too.”

Allen has raised about $400,000 and used most of it to fend off attacks by Umberg while outlining her credentials as a pro-business candidate eager to streamline the regulatory process. She has spent much of the time trying to tie Umberg in with powerful Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and blasted him repeatedly for trying to “fool the voters into believing he was part of Operation Desert Storm.” (Umberg, an Army Reserve officer, spent several months on duty in the California desert in the months leading to the war.)

In the other Orange County races for the Legislature, the Republican Party enjoys a wide voter registration margin and has fielded mostly a veteran contingent of election-tested incumbents with hefty campaign coffers.

Times staff writers Dave Lesher, Bill Stall, Douglas P. Shuit and Richard C. Paddock contributed to this report.