CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Boxer Cancels Major TV Debate With Herschensohn

U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Boxer, enjoying a comfortable double-digit lead over her opponent, Bruce Herschensohn, has pulled out of a major debate that would have been televised statewide.

Boxer’s staff blamed an unexpected change in the format for the decision to withdraw from the debate sponsored by the California Broadcasters Assn., though debate organizers said there was no change in the agreed-upon format. While the format was being worked out, Boxer aides said, her schedule became crowded with other events.

But Republican Herschensohn on Tuesday used the Boxer demurral to attack the Democratic congresswoman on a number of fronts, including her attendance record in Washington and what he calls her abuse of congressional perks.

Reflecting a more aggressive campaign strategy that he announced in an interview with The Times last week, Herschensohn accused Boxer of failing to do her job as a congresswoman while using taxpayers’ money to, essentially, subsidize her campaign. He blasted Boxer for having one of the highest absentee rates in Congress.

“The ethical thing to do . . . would be to have resigned and campaigned,” Herschensohn said in a news conference in Hollywood. “You do one or the other.”

Herschensohn has also begun airing television advertisements that similarly blast congressional “luxuries” as a waste of taxpayers’ money. Campaign Manager Ken Khachigian said Tuesday that the campaign is considering a more direct attack on Boxer in future ads, one that will remind voters that she wrote 143 overdrafts on the now-defunct House bank.

Boxer has repeatedly said she “regrets” every congressional vote she misses but that poor attendance has been the downside of having to campaign in a state across the continent from Washington.

Herschensohn, a conservative former television commentator, suggested he is being forced to take a more negative stance because the liberal Boxer has refused more frequent debates.

“Time is getting down awfully short, and those things that I wanted to come out about her through debates, while I’m looking her in the eye and she’s looking me in the eye . . . it isn’t going to be that way,” Herschensohn said.

“You have to be able to let the voter know the differences between two candidates. . . . I’m going to continue to bring out differences because I cannot do it in the way I wanted to.”

Boxer has appeared with Herschensohn at two debates thus far, and another one is scheduled for Oct. 14 in Manhattan Beach, sponsored by the American Assn. of Retired Persons.

But Herschensohn said he was “very disappointed” that the debate organized by the California Broadcasters Assn. (CBA) had to be scrapped. It would have been carried on 47 commercial television and radio stations throughout the state.

“This was really the big one,” he said.

Boxer withdrew from the debate, originally scheduled for Oct. 10, after an apparent disagreement over format. According to correspondence between the congresswoman or her representatives and the association, the format would have involved interchange between the two candidates for the first half hour, with reporters interspersing follow-up questions; then another half-hour segment with direct questioning from reporters.

Boxer’s staff apparently interpreted a Sept. 17 confirmation letter from the association as having changed this format. However, according to Vic Biondi, executive director of the broadcasters association, the format had in fact not been changed, and Boxer’s staff evidently misunderstood the Sept. 17 letter.

By the time all of this was clarified, according to Boxer campaign spokeswoman Karen Olick, Boxer had agreed to three other debates with Herschensohn and didn’t see the need to agree to the fourth.

“I don’t know why people are singling this one out,” Olick said. “Three debates are as many as they’re doing in the other (Senate) race and three times more than in the presidential.

“He’s so used to being behind a television lens--that’s what he does for a living: debate. But there are other components to a Senate campaign, and we want to do them all.”

In the other Senate race, a debate sponsored by the broadcasters association and scheduled for Saturday in Sacramento between candidates John Seymour and Dianne Feinstein has been rescheduled for Oct. 10.