Senate Race Is a Sleeping Giant--So Far

All right, so presidential candidates are again fawning over voters in New Hampshire. And in Iowa, as always, politicians are gabbing for hours with farmers about topics like subsidizing ethanol.

In South Carolina, contenders for the White House are weighing in on whether a Confederate flag should continue to fly over the statehouse. And in New York, not a day goes by without some mention of a U.S. Senate race that isn’t even officially underway.

But here in California, just seven weeks from the state’s March 7 primary, we’ve heard barely a peep from those vying for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein. And some of their supporters are being caught off guard by the fast-approaching election.

How sleepy is it?

“I had a guy in Arizona who committed last year to raising $50,000 for my campaign,” said GOP Senate hopeful Ray Haynes, a state senator from Riverside. “But after I hadn’t heard from him by the holidays, I called and said, ‘What about that money?’ ”

Like a lot of people, Haynes said, the longtime contributor wondered why the rush? “I told him the primary is in March,” Haynes said. “He said, ‘Oh, I thought you guys were in June.’ ”

We were. But political leaders, tired of California’s lack of clout in deciding presidential candidates, moved it to

March in hopes of making California a real player in picking the nominees.

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Not everyone, it seems, was ready for the change.

“What are you doing here?” a longtime San Diego County employee asked a reporter last week at the county’s headquarters building.

“I came to talk with Supervisor Bill Horn,” the reporter said. “He’s running for the U.S. Senate nomination.”

“He is?”

Case closed.

“Clearly, people aren’t focused on any of the campaigns, and that is largely the product of the early primary,” said Republican political consultant Kevin Spillane. “I think it is applicable to all the races, and certainly in the Senate race.”

“Their attention,” said another candidate for the GOP Senate nomination, Orange County businessman J.P. Gough, “just seems to be elsewhere.”

In the Senate race, the perceived front-runner for the Republican nomination-- Rep. Tom Campbell of San Jose--has no plans to campaign in voter-rich Los Angeles, Orange or San Diego counties until month’s end.

In the meantime, he will make quick fund-raising visits to Rancho Mirage, Chicago and New York, and fulfill a commitment to teach a course this month at Stanford University, where he is a law professor.

That schedule leaves Campbell just five weeks to campaign before election day. That may be enough time for him, or anyone, to rouse voters. Then again, waiting too long has its peril.

A recent survey by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that incumbent Democrat Feinstein has a commanding advantage over Campbell, 53% to 12%. More ominously for him, the survey also found that a staggering 80% of “likely” GOP voters statewide don’t even know who he is.

“[This] election season has caught a lot of people by surprise,” said survey director Mark Baldassare. “We’re coming off the holiday season and Y2K and all of a sudden--boom--people are having to make decisions” about elections.

Some veteran consultants say waiting is a logical strategy.

“I think everyone is holding their powder until the last 30 days or so because they are restricted to paid media to get out their message,” said longtime GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum.

Because the sheer size of the state makes it impossible to reach large numbers of voters quickly except through television, any serious candidate for statewide office must buy costly TV time--a serious, last-minute blitz of statewide advertising that could cost upward of $1 million. That may explain why the candidates have spent more time on fund-raising than on stump speeches or press events.

“I think Campbell, for example, has to figure out how little money he can spend and still win the [primary],” said Hoffenblum. Besides, he quipped, “there’s nothing Campbell could do in L.A. to get any coverage unless he dropped his pants.”

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Once upon a time, there were plenty of newspapers to follow candidates, and their coverage guaranteed attention from television and radio stations.

But many papers are gone. And most television stations don’t assign anyone full time to cover politics. Traffic, yes. But not politics.

“Politics in California, except for presidential campaigns, has really changed,” said Feinstein campaign spokesman Kam Kuwata. “The news media covers big events like election day but in terms of day-to-day coverage, it is very difficult to get [the media] to cover ‘campaign’ events.”

Added Kuwata: “The news media says to campaigns, ‘You are not saying anything newsworthy, therefore we’re not going to cover it.’ And the campaigns say, ‘You’re not going to cover it, therefore we’re not going to say anything.’ ”

The result: The surest way to get attention is to buy it.

It is expensive to try to energize voters through a well-organized, street-level campaign--and frankly no longer seems possible in California.

“The state is too large and too diverse,” said Hoffenblum. “You can’t run statewide in California with a grass-roots organization. Ronald Reagan couldn’t even do it.”

Not that the Senate campaign will stay dormant as March 7 approaches.

“Californians focus whenever they feel it is appropriate to focus,” said Kuwata. “And to say that a month out or two weeks out [from election day] is too late to focus is ridiculous.”