It looked for all the world like a ”women`s power” victory tour. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the day after their runaway victories in Democratic primaries, thrusting their fists in the air and flying across the state to preach the feminist gospel that helped make them the first two women to together win nominations for seats in the U.S. Senate from California.
But no sooner had their chartered jet landed for the last time than the nominees in California`s double-barreled Senate races hurried away-two political animals with different agendas, facing dramatically divergent general-election challenges.
Boxer, currently a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, an unabashed liberal, faces in Republican nominee Bruce Herschensohn a conservative opponent with the same sort of platform that won Ronald Reagan 49 states in 1980. The more moderate Feinstein is squaring off against U.S. Sen. John Seymour, a moderate Republican with whom she shares some views.
That means that while Feinstein and Boxer can be expected to drift back together when the opportunity arises to make gender a winning electoral issue, even in joint appearances they will speak about individual political agendas. ”In a year when the Supreme Court is making decisions on abortion and in a state that is clearly pro-choice, Barbara and Dianne appearing together is a plus, because that reminds people of the lack of women in the Senate,” said Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski. ”But we certainly don`t want people to think that we`re the same candidate. They have two choices to make, and we`re running two different campaigns.”
On a nationwide talk show recently, Feinstein acknowledged but played down the feminist factor in her primary win and even the notion that being a woman automatically makes her an outsider.
”I was speaking to the issues that move Californians, namely the economy, education, health care and cleaning up the environment,” Feinstein said on the CNN program ”Crier & Co.”
”. . . (We) are not neophytes to government. We`ve earned our spurs, so to speak.”
Still, there is no precedent for what happened in California earlier this month, and no one is denying that gender had something to do with it. This year, 30 years since a major party in the state nominated a woman for the Senate, voters appeared to be turning to women as a vehicle for reversing the status quo.
”The outrage and frustration with the status quo is absolutely palpable,” state Treasurer Kathleen Brown said. ”At this moment in history, women represent change.”
With more political experience than either of their opponents, Boxer and Feinstein will be hard-pressed to count on the outsider factor to pull off November victories.
They won`t, however, have any difficulty getting coverage. Their status as something of a historical curiosity already has television networks scrambling to give them joint air time. Their challenge will be to exploit the free media attention without allowing themselves to be turned into a political novelty show-and without being perceived as closer politically than their temperaments and records allow.
The two women, after all, have never been personal or political friends. Boxer is a rabble-rousing `60s activist with the heart and political mind of a born idealist. Feinstein, former San Francisco mayor, is a moderate with a less-exuberant speaking style and a nuts-and-bolts mind.
While the two may be able to argue they can best represent women on issues such as abortion, breast-cancer research money and sexual harassment, they`ll also have to overcome old stereotypes that women can`t handle economic and foreign policy issues as well as men.
Women are often seen by California voters as likely to do a better job on the environment, health care and education, said Mark DiCamillo, associate director of the California Poll. But men generally get higher marks for handling fiscal management duties and crime.
Boxer, who sits on the House Budget and Armed Services committees, ran up against just such stereotyping during a radio debate during the primary. While her two male opponents fielded questions on the Persian Gulf war, defense and crime, Boxer got just two queries-one on health care, the other on education. How long what DiCamillo called the ”halo effect” will last around the two women is debatable.
Seymour`s campaign is already throwing his net toward moderate Republicans, saying he stands for traditional Republican ideals as well as women`s rights.
”The gender issue is hot and topical and may last through the fall,”
said Seymour spokesman Jeff Weir. ”But (Feinstein) tried to run on that for governor (in 1990). It didn`t work.”
Even so, the Feinstein primary maxim that the Senate needs more than the two women already there may be difficult for Seymour, appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, to blunt in November.
”Just getting more women inside the Senate-that`s the toughest argument
(facing Seymour). It`s not only the message, it`s the messenger,” said Stephen Van Beek, a San Jose State University political science professor.
”He can`t put on a wig.”
Boxer, meanwhile, will seek to portray Herschensohn, a former television commentator, as a wild extremist, taking the focus off her own liberal record. Herschensohn and Seymour`s strategists in turn already are labeling their female opponents as two liberal San Francisco Bay area politicians-which in addition to tagging them with the liberal label also underscores that neither would represent a Southern California constituency.
Herschensohn campaign manager Ken Khachigian said his candidate would deal with the powerful gender card by not playing it at all.
`It`s almost insulting to voters to suggest that they`re going to be swayed one way or another by whether a candidate is a woman,” Khachigian said.
However, with women energized by the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and by the prospect that the right to an abortion could be further limited by the courts, it is safe to bet that some voters will be swayed by just that. Feinstein and Boxer will be huddling with their strategists in coming weeks to devise campaign themes that play on their gender without making it the sole focus.
”The worst thing they can do is preach to their own choir,” said Los Angeles political consultant Sidney Galanty. ”They`ll win if they move outside that feminist cathedral and pull in voters in the middle.”
