Strategy key in de León, Feinstein’s lone debate
The U.S. Senate debate in the nation’s largest state won’t be broadcast on statewide TV. The best way to catch Wednesday’s confrontation between Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Kevin de León will be via a live stream at noon — hardly prime time.
Nonetheless, what’s being billed as a “conversation” at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco, with the nonprofit’s president doling out questions, will be a historic occasion: Not since 2000 has Feinstein engaged an election challenger one-on-one. She’s had no pressure to do so until now, having faced only nominal opposition.
De León, however, is a different brand of challenger, even though he trails in the
polls. He’s the author of California’s main sanctuary legislation, giving him credibility with the Democratic “resistance” to President Trump. It helped win him the endorsement of the state Democratic Party over Feinstein, a stunning rebuke to a senator seeking her fifth full term.
Here’s what to watch for Wednesday: Feinstein’s job: “She needs to not make news,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego and author of “The New Political Geography of California.” Feinstein needs to act like “she’s earned re-election with her actions in office. It’s not going to be won on the debate podium.”
With de León challenging his fellow Democrat from the left, Feinstein “needs to make sure there is no daylight between them on the issues,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles. And he agrees that “she will try to argue that her incumbency and her reputation are key to her effectiveness.” De León’s job: Decide how aggressively to attack Feinstein. De León is termed out of the state Senate, but he’s only 51 and will probably have a political future even if he loses Nov. 6. That future might get cut short if he is perceived as disrespectful to the 85-year-old Feinstein, who has been in public office for five decades.
“Is (he) still trying to win this election, or is he trying to lose his way up the political ladder by making a strong showing?” Kousser said. “If he is going to use (Wednesday’s debate) as a way to introduce himself to voters, that’s not going to win him this race. Or, is he going to go for the jugular?”
Sonenshein said de León has “run a pretty good campaign so far in that he’s not attacked her personally. He’s basically sort of slowly and steadily said she is out of touch with the party she represents. He needs to keep doing that — and he’s got to make a little news, or hope that she does.” How are they different? So far, they’ve disagreed mainly over tone and strategy. De León says Feinstein is a “country club” type too meek to take on Trump; Feinstein says getting along is how things get done in Washington.
“I would love to hear a conversation about, ‘When should you fight, and when should you compromise? Give me one good example,’ ” Sonenshein said.
The two agree on most issues. But pay especially close attention to how Feinstein handles Medicare for all if it comes up. De León helped pass a bill in the state Senate last year that would have instituted it in California, and support for a single-payer system is quickly becoming a litmus test for progressive Democrats. Feinstein is skeptical, but says she supports a public health care option and letting people enroll in Medicare at 55.
“What the Bernie Sanders types want to hear from Dianne Feinstein is why she doesn’t support single payer,” Kousser said.
They might have disagreed on more, but Feinstein has moved left in recent months on several issues. Now she opposes the death penalty and supports legislation to prevent the federal government from cracking down on the cannabis industry in California and other states where marijuana use is legal. Kavanaugh fallout: De León said Feinstein should have gone public earlier with Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of attempted rape against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Then Trump began piling on Feinstein for allegedly leaking the charges, prompting chants of “lock her up” at one of his rallies — and probably making her a much more sympathetic figure for Democrats.
It will be interesting to see how de León handles it Wednesday, especially given how the #MeToo movement became prominent in Sacramento during his time as state Senate president. What should Republican voters do? Watch something else. Polls show that many Republicans will sit this election out, and there’s not much the two Democrats will say Wednesday that will change that.
Republicans are asking, “‘Is there anybody left who has my voice in California politics?’ ” Sonenshein said. Twenty years ago, he said, Feinstein “said some things that appealed to Republicans on crime and immigration. She’s not going to say that anymore.”