2 Women on Separate Trails in House Race

Former Rep. Jane Harman is the polished Washington insider with the star power to merit some podium time at the Democratic National Convention this week and the connections to get 22 district high school students signed on as ushers.

Gerrie Schipske is the Long Beach nurse-practitioner and health care attorney working hard to persuade Democratic congressional leaders that she has what it takes to oust a well-established incumbent this fall. She did not get to address the convention, and her student volunteers did not get to be ushers. But Schipske raised some money--and her visibility--with her whirlwind week of party-going, caucusing and fund-raising.

How these two women, both challenging Republican incumbent men in adjacent, Pacific-hugging congressional districts, spent the convention week reveals something about their contrasting personal and political histories and their different places on the campaign trail.

Harman is trying to win back from Rep. Steven T. Kuykendall (R-Torrance) the politically moderate South Bay 36th District seat that she held for three terms and relinquished to run for governor two years ago, losing in the primary. Schipske, a former Long Beach City College trustee and local Democratic activist, is hoping to defeat four-term Rep. Steve Horn in the Long Beach-based 38th District.

Political insiders are calling the Harman-Kuykendall contest a tossup in the aerospace- and technology-oriented district that runs from Venice to San Pedro. But, even some Democrats privately still give Schipske long odds in a district where centrist Horn keeps winning elections despite a substantial Democratic registration edge and a recent surge in Schipske’s fund-raising.

Whatever exposure this week brought her, Harman said, she picked her convention-related events with two goals in mind: getting young people interested in politics and helping causes and groups that she supports.

“I want to try to turn on a new generation to public service, and I want to say thank you to my base of supporters, especially women,” Harman said Tuesday.

She had just participated in an online political chat, set up by Excite and Voter.com in the “Internet Alley” next to Staples Center, where Democrats were staging their four-day convention, and had wrapped up brief interviews with local radio and cable television reporters.

Memories of 1960 Convention

An hour earlier, Harman had addressed convention delegates, opening her three-minute speech by invoking memories of the last time her party came to town. The University High School student and daughter of a Westside physician was a volunteer usher at the 1960 convention. She got to meet Eleanor Roosevelt and watch John F. Kennedy win his historic nomination.

“The experience changed my life,” Harman said. Standing behind her on the podium as she spoke were the 22 beach-area students she had brought to the convention to serve as ushers, “just as I did. And, I hope, to be inspired to public service, just as I was,” Harman added.

Harman went on to Smith College and Harvard law school and worked in Washington for a U.S. senator and the Carter administration before becoming a corporate lawyer and lobbyist. In 1992, she returned to California, winning the open 36th District seat with a pro-abortion rights platform and a family bank account plenty big enough to get her message out.

Democratic leaders, trying to wrest control of the House of Representatives from Republicans this fall, recruited Harman for this return race, one of the half a dozen or so contests that Democrats have made their highest priority.

So Harman did not need to come to the convention to advance her own campaign, political analysts say. In fact, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee urged House candidates in tough races to stay home and work their districts rather than come to Los Angeles this week.

The Democratic challenger in the Los Angeles area’s other top-tier race--state Sen. Adam Schiff of Burbank, running against Republican Rep. James E. Rogan of Glendale--mostly took that advice. He spent little time at Staples Center and took in only a couple of related events.

“Every minute I’m there [at the convention] and not walking precincts, I feel guilty.” Schiff told a Times reporter.

Harman saw things differently. While she is no longer in office, she was welcomed to the convention as if she were still in Congress.

She opened her convention week schedule Sunday with an address to the National Jewish Democratic Council at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. On Monday, she spoke to the New Democrat Network. Before her floor speech Tuesday, she was a featured guest at a Beverly Hills luncheon fund-raiser for EMILY’s List, which supports Democrat women candidates.

“I forgot how rough this is,” Harman joked to the two campaign aides.

On Wednesday, she attended the Shadow Convention at Patriotic Hall, not far from Staples Center, to show her support for campaign finance reform.

On Thursday, Harman attended a Democratic Leadership Committee breakfast with vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman. She took Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala on a lunchtime tour of the Venice Family Clinic, where Harman is a board member, and talked to her about children’s health issues.

In between, she made the rounds of a few fund-raising parties--including one for California Sen. Dianne Feinstein--and spent time at the convention.

A Chance to Share the Spotlight

Schipske had a very different convention week experience--that of a Washington outsider for whom the door is beginning to open at last.

“It raises my visibility, and it’s a great opportunity to network,” said Schipske, who booked a Holiday Inn room near Staples to be closer to the convention action.

House leaders had recruited a political newcomer--award winning teacher Erin Gruwell--for the race, but Schipske narrowly defeated her in the four-way March primary. Since then they have thrown support to Schipske, but her contest has yet to make it into the top tier of races, which are targeted for maximum party effort and financial aid.

Schipske insists that she will soon be there, citing her convention experiences as proof. She was invited to join Harman and Schiff in a labor-sponsored, pre-convention rally last Friday, featuring House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.), head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

This week, Schipske shared the endorsement--and the spotlight--at the EMILY’s List luncheon with Harman and Assemblywoman Susan A. Davis (D-San Diego), who is challenging Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-San Diego) in the 49th District.

Schipske said the White House got her credentials to attend the convention, and influential Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) invited her to share her highly coveted sky box Monday night.

As Harman was addressing the convention Tuesday, Schipske, an open lesbian, was holding a fund-raiser at Zita Trattoria a few blocks from Staples Center. The guest of honor was liberal Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), probably the House’s best known gay.

She was also invited to speak to the Gay and Lesbian Caucus on Wednesday, the same day that Lieberman addressed the group of about 300 at the Wilshire Grand Hotel. Her domestic partner, Flo Pickett, snapped pictures as Schipske told the enthusiastic audience that she could become the first open lesbian elected to Congress from California.

Schipske said she picked her events--including a session of the Democratic Women’s Caucus--to reflect her constituencies, citing nurses, women, gays and lesbians and labor and environmental groups.

Like Harman, Schipske had memories of 1960 that she brought with her to this convention. They were the memories of an outsider, but powerful nonetheless.

Schipske, born in Long Beach, recalled how badly her devoutly Catholic mother wanted to meet Kennedy, who was soon to be elected the first Catholic president. She told how her working-class parents bundled their 10-year-old daughter and her two siblings into the family car and drove to Los Angeles International Airport to meet the plane carrying Kennedy to the convention. They waited at the airport for hours, the sun beating down and causing them to sweat in their Sunday best, for a glimpse of Kennedy as he stepped from the plane and briefly addressed the welcomers.

Forty years later, Schipske found herself on the inside at a national convention.

“I’ve spent my life getting to the point where I can run for this kind of office,” Schipske said.

Attending the convention “is once in a lifetime opportunity,” she said, “and I might not get the chance again.”

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Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.