Feinstein can end tenure with respect
Despite California's reputation as a progressive stronghold, the state's most enduring politician is a prim Pacific Heights resident with a stubborn conservative streak. California voters have kept Dianne Feinstein in the United States Senate for over 30 years. Last month, she became the longest-serving woman in Senate history.
At 89, Feinstein must now wind down her impressive career. The only problem: She doesn't know how to quit. She made her way through life — and politics — by persevering through challenges that would crush a weaker person. Time and again, she's conquered doubt and defeat.
But the depredations of old age are a different matter, and Feinstein's legendary perseverance has transformed from a superpower into a liability. For two years, she's been hounded by questions about her mental acuity. Stories depict her as befuddled and forgetful. Her fiercest critics, many of whom would love to see octogenarian Bernie Sanders become president, demand her resignation.
True to form, Feinstein has mostly refused to yield to the looming reality of retirement. As a result, we're watching her dignity get stripped away by a stream of unflattering stories. “Feinstein faltering” has become its own sub-genre of political journalism. Every few months, another reporter “discovers” what Jane Mayer of the New Yorker laid out painstakingly in a 2020 profile headlined “Dianne Feinstein's missteps raise a painful age question among Senate Democrats.” It's death by a thousand headlines.
Everyone diminishes with age. Still, it's hard for me to square these stories with my memories of the exacting and formidable leader I observed during the two years I spent as her communications director. She was a micromanaging executive machine. Every letter, memo, press release and invitation had to make it past her steel trap mind. She displayed an endless appetite for briefings, media interviews and lengthy meetings. Keeping up with Feinstein, then 75, was the hardest job I ever had.
Viewing her work as a sacred duty, she maintained a tight grip on the reins of her operation. Perhaps she's missing a step these days, but those of us who know her best understand that surrender is not in her DNA.
“Feinstein's life has been of operatic proportion, a human drama marked by extraordinary tragedies and triumphs,” wrote Jerry Roberts, the former San Francisco Chronicle executive editor who authored her biography. “Her career has been shaped both by an enduring ability to accept and overcome private anguishes, political humiliations, and recurrent defeats and by a driving ambition to prevail against the odds, prove herself, and wield power in a professional field long dominated by men.”
Feinstein's dream of becoming San Francisco's first woman mayor was thrust upon her in a nightmarish fashion by the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978. Steeled by tragedy, she became the mayor of her city and a symbol of its strength. One political observer quipped that Feinstein ran San Francisco “like a Roman empress.”
At City Hall, she developed her handson style, dictating every word, racing to major fires, and, once, even giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an ailing man on the street. Her infamous command-and-control style always seemed to me like a response to the chaos that helped create her.
All things must pass, and Feinstein's iron grip is slipping even as her iron will remains immutable. As someone with a deep respect for her, I can't help but feel sympathetic. And let's be clear: Even on her worst day, Feinstein is more competent than 95% of the politicians in Washington. I don't think people with dementia should hold public office, but older legislators are hardly the worst offenders. After all, she isn't raving about space lasers or fomenting insurrection. If she remained in the Senate until her 100th birthday, she'd be more cogent and effective than most of her alleged peers on Capitol Hill.
Unfortunately, the public spectacle of her decline has started to overshadow her successes. She's become a ripe target for gossip, treachery and the blood-sport antics of the Washington press corps. Some of the criticism seems sexist and unfair (plenty of men have served as senators on their deathbeds). And if we don't want senior citizens in public office, perhaps we should stop electing them. But as Rep. Nancy Pelosi said when she paraphrased Ecclesiastes while stepping away from leadership this week: “for everything, there is a season.”
Feinstein must also embrace her next phase, but that doesn't mean she should resign. Instead, she must make it crystal clear that she will retire after this term. Doing so will take the sport out of exposing her struggles and calm the anxieties of those who feel the need to tear her down so she won't run again at 91.
After a lifetime of service, Feinstein deserves better than to spend her final years being hunted through the halls of Congress and exploited for clicks. She deserves respect, but only she can decide how her story ends. By ending all speculation about 2024, she can seize the moment and help shift attention to her aspiring successors, who would stop gossiping about her memory and start courting her endorsement. Fading or not, her name is political gold in a California campaign.