Candidates Stump; Voters Underwhelmed

If it were a Broadway play, it might have closed after one night. But it’s a political campaign, so the curtain on the first act waits until the March 7 primary for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and three Republicans battling to challenge her in November.

Still, as they have taken their shows on the road, through living rooms and banquet halls from Sacramento to San Juan Capistrano, the incumbent Democrat and her would-be opponents are confronted by an almost palpable disinterest.

“I understand, I really do,” an earnest Rep. Tom Campbell (R-San Jose) said last week, surveying 44 empty chairs set up for a Los Angeles news conference attended by a lone reporter.

“Maybe there is so much attention to the presidential race that it takes all the available focus away from other races,” said the GOP front-runner, who had called the meeting to unveil his TV ads.

Add to the presidential factor a primary bumped from June to March and an incumbent with 95% name recognition and solid showings in the polls. All have conspired against turning this race into a standing-room-only event.

Meanwhile, the campaigns have unfolded simultaneously on three separate stages. On one, Feinstein is alone. On another, Campbell runs against her. On the third, Ray Haynes and Bill Horn campaign against everyone.

At a private club near the state Capitol last week, state Sen. Haynes (R-Riverside) sat in a cavernous reception hall with just a few dozen supporters--most of them on his payroll--and plenty of leftover hors d’oeuvres.

Event organizer Tom McCollum, immediate past president of the Sacramento Republican Assembly, had his own theory of why turnout was so low even though Haynes was a “slam-dunk” endorsement for the ultra-conservative group.

“People are really apathetic,” McCollum said, echoing a lament of many delegates at the recent state GOP convention. “Longtime conservatives are just checking out.”

Indeed, votes are so precious that Horn, a San Diego County supervisor who also wants the GOP nomination, traveled all the way to a Lake Elsinore Sizzler on Thursday to address 28 members of the Inland Valley Congress of Republicans.

Horn waited through announcements of the group’s internal awards for such deeds as helping with meetings and creating artwork for fliers. He delivered his stump speech emphasizing patriotism, his anger at what he calls government intrusions in private business and his frustration with environmentalists.

The audience loved his tale about refusing to turn over two peregrine falcons roosting on his property, which were sought by the San Diego Wild Animal Park for protection.

“If those birds leave my property, they can have them,” he told them, to applause. “But God put them there.”

Asked later if Horn’s appearance had secured 28 votes, organizer Helen Risk demurred. Although the statewide chapter has backed Campbell, she said, many local members had supported Orange County businessman J.P. Gough, who dropped out of the race weeks ago. Pressed, she concluded: “We don’t usually stand up and say we endorse one person; that’s too divisive.”

Candidates Voice Familiar Themes

As they campaign, the candidates stick to familiar themes.

In Campbell’s soliloquy, there is no giant government surplus, as Feinstein claims, that could be used to boost teacher pay and help fight poverty. Instead, there is a raid on the federal Social Security coffers, engineered, he says, by Feinstein and her Democratic compatriots.

His fiscally conservative views are far more palatable to many Republicans than his moderate, even liberal, views on social issues.

“Fellow Republicans, we have so much in common that if we emphasize it, we’ll win,” Campbell tells his audiences.

Such talk is heresy to Haynes and Horn. Unabashed conservatives, they like to say Campbell is more liberal than Feinstein.

Courting the same conservative constituencies, Haynes and Horn often appear alone before small groups of rock-ribbed Republicans--except at mini-debates sponsored by hard-right conservatives, when they square off against each other.

Last week, just hours after he met a group of medical association members for a campaign breakfast, Campbell was nowhere to be found during a lunchtime debate in the same banquet facility, hosted by the Orange Republican Women, Federated. “He either forgot or we had our wires crossed,” said Patricia Welch, who chaired the program at the Turnip Rose restaurant.

In this Orange County bastion of California conservatism, the Horn and Haynes debate drew about 80 women who are more devoted to the Republican Party than just about anything in life, save their families. And by God, they said, this fall they want to finally oust Dianne Feinstein, whose very name gets them harrumphing.

“I think you know why we’re all here--I’m seeking the seat that is currently held by Dianne Feinstein,” Haynes said to applause.

“I am running because Dianne Feinstein needs to be retired,” Horn told the group a few minutes later. More applause.

Feinstein rarely strays from her script, either, as she zigzags the state, and she never mentions Campbell unless asked.

While Congress took a break last week, Feinstein spoke at two public events billed as “constituents’ lunches,” not campaign appearances, and gave a couple news conferences on topics near and dear.

The rest was left to news releases descending like confetti. One example: Only hours after his death, “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz was nominated by Feinstein for a Congressional Gold Medal.

Although Feinstein didn’t mention the fall general election during a breakfast speech in Santa Barbara on Friday, many in the audience said they had come to gather information that could determine how they vote in March and in November.

“I’m one of those people who is the typical profile of my generation,” said Monette Stephens, 36, chief technology officer at Atlas Consulting. “I don’t feel I’m represented by either party. That’s why I want to hear her views.”

In Fresno, Feinstein drew a phalanx of television cameras for an announcement that she would introduce a bill this week requiring seat belts in farm worker transport vans. Such a measure might sound gutsy in a region dominated by agriculture, but a similar state law already passed last year.

In a speech to the Fresno Chamber of Commerce the same day, she scored points with agricultural leaders when she talked of the need for more water storage, including reservoirs, but lost some points with the same group with a proposal for increasing the minimum wage and her opposition to a temporary worker visa program.

“It goes against the grain of politicians to say we need people from other countries,” said Selma raisin grower Alan Kasparian, a lifelong Democrat who said he plans to vote for Feinstein anyway because “she listens and she’s receptive.”

Difficult to Focus on Senate Race

That’s how Ginny Douglas feels about Campbell. Douglas was one of 60 supporters of the congressman at a fund-raising soiree in an upscale suburban Sacramento home Wednesday night. Campbell is articulate and intelligent, Douglas said, even though she has not always agreed with his positions.

“I supported you in ‘92,” she told him, referring to Campbell’s unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate nomination that year.

“Blessed are those who have not forgotten!” responded Campbell.

Name recognition is the only obstacle between him and a November win, Campbell asserted, urging the party-goers to donate more money to keep his television ad on the air.

Still, even for those who pay plenty of attention to politics, it’s not always easy to stay focused on the Senate race.

“So what do you think?” a reporter asked La Quinta Councilwoman Terry Henderson minutes before Campbell was to speak at the Lincoln Club of Coachella Valley.

“It’s so exciting,” Henderson said, “that this race is not a foregone conclusion. That the party has real choices, real options.”

“In the Senate race?” the reporter continued.

“Oh,” she said, “I was talking about the presidential primary.”

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Times staff writers Tom Gorman in Lake Elsinore and Catherine Black in Santa Barbara contributed to this report.