CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Davis Questions Feinstein’s Electability During Debate

Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Gray Davis and Dianne Feinstein engaged in their most spirited exchange of the campaign Friday when Davis ended their first televised debate by questioning his opponent’s ability to win the general election.

Unable to respond in the time left during the debate, Feinstein later accused her opponent of trying to pander to right-wing voters with television ads focusing on the Los Angeles riots.

Davis, the state controller, touched off the give-and-take in his closing remarks, when he brought up a Fair Political Practices Commission civil lawsuit filed against Feinstein. The suit charges that Feinstein improperly reported more than $8 million in campaign contributions she received during her unsuccessful 1990 race for governor.

Davis, an underdog in his race against the onetime mayor of San Francisco, said FPPC action would be “a big anchor” around Democrats’ necks in the November general election if Feinstein wins, as expected.

Feinstein told reporters later that Davis had acted out of desperation.

“What we are seeing is some desperation from someone who is running 31 points behind me at this point,” said Feinstein, surrounded by reporters on a stage at Century Cable Television in Santa Monica, which filmed the debate for cable television stations in California. It will also be carried on C-Span, a national cable public affairs channel.

Feinstein’s reference to running ahead of Davis stemmed from a Los Angeles Times poll published Friday showing that 55% of the Democrats surveyed supported Feinstein, while 24% favored Davis, 4% backed lawyer Joseph M. Alioto and 17% were undecided.

Feinstein also criticized Davis for running two television ads containing videotaped footage of several black men beating white trucker Reginald O. Denny at the start of the Los Angeles riots. In response to reporters’ questions, she said the the ads would be polarizing, dividing white and black voters.

As before, Feinstein conceded that her campaign was guilty of “bookkeeping errors” and “omissions” in reporting campaign contributions in 1990. But she said she spent $150,000 on accountants to straighten out her records and had filed amendments that corrected the errors.

Feinstein has blamed the FPPC suit on politics. Davis, in his role as controller, serves as chairman of the state Franchise Tax Board, which turned up the errors in an audit of the former mayor’s records. And the FPPC is dominated by appointees of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who appointed GOP Sen. John Seymour to fill the rest of his Senate term after he defeated Feinstein for governor in 1990. Feinstein is running for Seymour’s seat, trying to fill the remaining two years of the six-year term.

Feinstein complained after the debate that Davis “looked at this like a gift from heaven, which makes me really believe in the political nature of the suit that has been brought against me.”

So far, Feinstein does not seem to have been hurt by the lawsuit. A Los Angeles Times poll taken in April showed that nearly half the registered Democrats surveyed said they had not heard of the charges, and most said the charges would have no effect on them.

After the debate, Davis continued to argue that Feinstein would be hurt by the FPPC action. “The party should not be burdened by somebody who has to explain away literally hundreds and hundreds of contributions that were not reported, millions of expenditures that were not reported,” he said.

As for his ads, Davis said: “The news media (have) shown that clip hundreds of times. (The news media) have chosen it as a shorthand description of what went on in Los Angeles for three or four days.”

Until Davis attacked Feinstein on the question of misreported contributions, the two candidates, along with Alioto, had spent about 55 minutes in an unusually civil debate centering mostly on their proposals to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

All three criticized Republican policies in Washington under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Each opposed tax increases as a way to reduce the deficit.

Alioto said the best way to generate more tax dollars to reduce the federal deficit is helping create “new businesses and more taxpayers.”

Davis said: “It makes no sense to raise taxes in a recession. We have to grow the economy.”

Feinstein said “moving our economy forward has to be at the top of our list (of government priorities.)”