Boxer a ‘Publicity Hound,’ by George

Sen. Barbara Boxer has been named one of the top 10 publicity hounds in Congress.

But this was one accomplishment that caught the senator’s press operation flat-footed. No press release was issued. No news conference was called. California’s junior senator turned down a request for an interview.

“She’s not interested in talking about that,” said her press secretary, David Sandretti, dismissing the listing as inside-the-Beltway banter.

Such a brusque no comment is surely proof that Boxer is not a publicity hound at all. Or maybe the senator, ever so savvy at attracting the media, envisioned a positive headline when she opted to stay mum. Perhaps something like: “Sen. Boxer Proves She’s No Publicity Hound.”

*

It was George magazine--the new political monthly with John F. Kennedy Jr. at the helm--that came up with the bipartisan list of publicity hounds, three of them from the Senate and seven from the House.

On her side of the Capitol, Boxer was joined by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), who has given rise to the term “Gramm-standing,” and Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), who once held a press conference to introduce his new love interest to the world.

“Bad press?” the magazine says. “As far as this group is concerned, there’s no such thing. Meet the legends of the sound bite business.”

George tapped Boxer, the lone Californian on the list, because of her flair for dramatic, attention-getting events. It noted that during her first term in the House, she discovered the Air Force’s $7,622 coffeepot and repeatedly touted it at press events as a symbol of what was wrong with the nation’s military procurement system.

She also led a group of women lawmakers up the Capitol steps, with television cameras following close behind, to demand an investigation into charges of sexual harassment during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearing.

Then there is Boxer’s book, “Strangers in the Senate,” which critics derisively consider a 256-page campaign brochure in hardcover.

And her maneuver during San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s inauguration: Arriving late at the ceremony, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, Boxer spurned her assigned front-row seat for an even more visible spot on the stage. The chair she snatched had been set aside for Brown’s granddaughter, who spent the ceremony perched on her grandfather’s lap.

“Grandchildren, beware,” George magazine declares. “With a tough election ahead in ‘98, Boxer will continue to hunt for seats in front of the camera.”

Although Boxer was not available to talk about the top-10 list, her new press secretary was.

Sandretti, who has worked for a variety of Democratic candidates and causes, explained the senator’s selection of seats at the Brown inauguration as a miscommunication, not a grab for the limelight.

And as for Boxer’s penchant for the microphone, that is an effort to promote issues important to her--not her 1998 reelection bid, Sandretti said. Through news conferences, op-ed pieces and interviews, he said, the senator is advancing her agenda--whether it is an increase in the minimum wage or open hearings for Bob Packwood’s sexual misdeeds.

“She came here to shake up the Senate and fight for California,” Sandretti explained. “You can’t do that by being a wallflower. You can’t sit on the sidelines and expect California’s economy to improve. You have to make some noise.”

*

California is a tough state for any politician eager to stay in the public eye, say media consultants who make a living trying to help their clients do just that.

There are too many members of the House for any one of them to hog the limelight. And the state’s two senators must plan their actions strategically to tap into the state’s dozen media markets, where television stations spend more time on crime and celebrities than the goings-on in the Capitol.

“We are almost devoid of television news coverage of politics or government,” explained one prominent political consultant who knows both of California’s senators. He suggested that Boxer may stand out because she tends to use more attention-getting methods than her colleague, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, to draw the media to Washington news.

But a publicity hound? Her defenders say no.

“Howard Stern is a media hog, not Barbara Boxer,” said Julio Ramirez, deputy chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Gray Davis and a veteran of numerous campaigns. “Barbara Boxer is doing the job she was elected to do. One of the vehicles she uses, the only vehicle politicians can use, is the media.”