Feinstein Off to Job, Boxer Takes Break

A day after scoring stunning victories and establishing their unique place in history, the winners of California’s dual U.S. Senate races, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, went their separate ways Wednesday. Feinstein assumed her official role while Boxer headed for a four-day vacation in Hawaii.

Feinstein, basking in the glow of her 17-point drubbing of incumbent Republican Sen. John Seymour, was informed by the secretary to the Senate that she is to take office almost immediately. She said she expects to be sworn in by Tuesday.

“I am the senator,” an apparently surprised Feinstein told reporters before lunching with her staff at a restaurant on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill. “I didn’t realize that. As soon as the election was final, John Seymour was out and the new senator is in.”

With the pace of the transition thus quickened, Feinstein at once set herself to the task of researching the committee appointments she intends to seek. At the same time, she is beginning to lay the groundwork for her reelection campaign in 1994.

Because her term is only two years--the final portion of the term vacated by Pete Wilson when he defeated Feinstein to become governor--Feinstein hopes to chalk up substantial legislative victories in short order.

For Boxer, elected to a full six-year term that commences in January, there is less urgency. She took what aides described as a much-needed vacation, skipping a San Francisco press conference called by state Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides and flying to Hawaii.

Before departing and after making the rounds of morning network news shows, she spoke briefly with reporters.

“I am going to sit down with Dianne and Bill Clinton,” she said when asked about her top Senate priority, “and we are going to talk about how we are going to really get this economy moving in California again.”

Boxer rejected the contention that she won only because of the huge margin of victory for Clinton or other factors outside her control, and she defended her campaign, which was criticized after her double-digit lead over conservative television commentator Bruce Herschensohn evaporated.

“People can think whatever they want,” she said. “I know one thing. Our strategy worked. We knew exactly what we were doing every minute.”

A “terribly disappointed” Herschensohn, who late Tuesday vowed not to concede until all the votes were counted, telephoned Boxer shortly after 2 a.m. to acknowledge his loss. He later told reporters he would not run again for public office.

Until his call, Boxer told reporters, she was basing her optimism and pronouncement of victory solely on network television projections.

When an aide announced that Herschensohn was on the phone, she abruptly ended an interview and darted toward the phone through a crowd of about 150 supporters. After a few minutes, she emerged from a private room and climbed up on a dining room chair to announce Herschensohn’s concession.

In the end, 48.3% of the vote went to Boxer and 42.6% to Herschensohn. Because of the narrow margin, Herschensohn campaign officials said they did not believe the Republican candidate was damaged decisively by eleventh-hour publicity over his visit to a Hollywood strip joint.

Boxer attributed her victory to a variety of factors, including a last-minute blitz of campaign appearances with Feinstein. The two women appeared together eight times in the last three days of the campaign.

Boxer, who in 1990 endorsed Feinstein’s opponent in the gubernatorial primary, was enthusiastic in her admiration for her new colleague, insisting that the two women had put their well-publicized differences behind them.

“We just have grown very close during this campaign and have realized the past is the past,” she said. “We had different coalitions in those days, and this is a new day. . . . I just think that she is a very caring, gracious person who feels very comfortable as part of the team.”

Asked a similar question in her separate appearance, Feinstein said: “I have had the occasion to get to know Barbara, to campaign together with her. I think we formed a team. I think we will be excellent colleagues. We will work very closely. Will we always feel identical on every issue? Probably not.”

The two senators-elect, despite different agendas and very different styles, have pledged to work as a “team for change” and, indeed, teamwork will be key if Feinstein is to achieve her goal of making a mark quickly.

For the first time in years, Feinstein said in one of many television appearances Wednesday, “one of California’s senator’s vote will not cancel out the other’s. . . . Barbara won’t block my legislation, and I won’t block hers.”

If such teamwork works, California can expect to see a desert protection bill and other legislation long blocked by partisan bickering. Feinstein and Boxer have also both pledged to work to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which prohibits states from restricting abortion.

The two also are expected to concentrate on programs to oversee the conversion of defense industries to commercial businesses in a state where military cutbacks also spell unemployment.

Angelides took advantage of a captive audience of reporters and camera crews who gathered for what was supposed to be the joint Feinstein-Boxer victory news conference to boast about the party’s good fortune in California on Tuesday. But he also offered a sobering assessment of what lies ahead.

“Clearly what is now in front of us is a tremendous responsibility to perform,” he said. “We went to the voters and said if you give us a united government, we will make it work . . . and the voters in 1994 and 1996 in California and across the nation will be judging our performance.”

Chief among the reasons for the success of Democrats in California, Angelides said, was their message of hope. “Democratic candidates spoke to hope, and they spoke to hope in what has been long the most optimistic of states,” he said.

The election of Feinstein and Boxer represents the first time California has had a woman senator and the first time any state has had two women in the Senate.

Feinstein said she believes the triumph of two women candidates for high office in the same state helps to open the door for many others to follow.

“I think what Barbara and I have shown is that, in the largest state in the union, it is possible at the same time for two women to win,” she said.

“We’ve heard . . . from the very beginning (that) two women wouldn’t win the primary, and we did. There was a lot of discussion that people wouldn’t vote for two Northern Californians, and they did, and that people wouldn’t choose two women in a general election, and they did.

“So I think we dispelled a number of myths about women running, and I think people are basically more interested in what you represent, your values, your judgment, the platform you put forward.”

Los Angeles Times exit polls showed that 45% of all voters participating in Tuesday’s election voted for both Feinstein and Boxer. But 19% of those who voted for Feinstein did not also vote for Boxer.

The polls did not offer conclusions about whose coattails helped whom in the dramatic Democratic sweep of the top of the ticket. Both Feinstein and Boxer received more votes than Clinton--but neither of the Senate candidates faced a strong third-party candidate like Ross Perot.

Loyalty among Clinton supporters carried over for Feinstein more than for Boxer: 89% of the Clinton voters also voted for Feinstein; 84% of Clinton voters voted for Boxer.

Interestingly, 16% of people who cast their votes for President Bush also voted for Feinstein, while only 9% of the Bush voters voted for Boxer.

The polls indicate that the liberal Boxer won the battle for the middle ground by taking a larger percentage of crossover voters and swing voters. Boxer got 28% of the Republicans who considered themselves moderate to liberal, while Herschensohn got only 22% of those Democrats who consider themselves moderate to conservative.

Boxer got 17% of the Republican vote while Herschensohn took only 14% of the Democratic vote.

The polls also showed that younger people and new voters generally went for Boxer, while a clear majority of the elderly--58%--went to Herschensohn.

Feinstein and Clinton would have won if only men had voted, but, unlike in June’s primary, Boxer needed women to win. However, only 18% of Republican women statewide voted for Boxer, despite some inroads she had made among Orange County GOP women.

Murphy reported from San Francisco and Wilkinson from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Douglas P. Shuit and Bill Stall also contributed to this story.