ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : McCarthy Ads Attack Boxer’s Overdrafts

As California’s Senate campaigns headed into the final stretch, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy went on the attack Monday with a stinging new television commercial that assails opponent Rep. Barbara Boxer for writing overdrafts on the scandal-ridden House bank.

The 30-second commercial shows a small picture of Boxer as it bounces across the screen and an announcer details the Marin County congresswoman’s 143 bank overdrafts.

“Congresswoman Barbara Boxer says she wants to go to the Senate to fix the system, to shake it up,” the announcer says. “She sure shook things up at the House bank.”

The ad is the most direct attack in the race for the Democratic nomination to replace Sen. Alan Cranston. The third candidate in the tight race, Rep. Mel Levine of Santa Monica, has used the overdraft issue in his ads but without mentioning Boxer’s name.

Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, said McCarthy’s ad was an unfair “nuclear attack” that stretches the truth.

“Here we are . . . eight days out, Leo finds himself falling in the polls and (he) decides to declare war,” she said. “Sounds to me like he’s desperate.”

Boxer has apologized for the overdrafts, which totaled $41,000, saying she should have paid more attention to the account and pointing out that no taxpayer money was involved.

The McCarthy commercial, which began running in the San Francisco Bay Area on Monday, also seeks to appeal to anti-incumbency sentiment. It criticizes Boxer for joining her colleagues in approving a 40% congressional pay raise and using government jets for VIP travel. The bouncing-Boxer picture speeds up as these items are flashed on the screen.

“It makes you wonder just how she’s going to fix the system when she’s part of what’s wrong with it,” the announcer says.

McCarthy may have decided to go after Boxer--rather than Levine, who also voted for the pay raise--because she was vulnerable on the check issue. Boxer moved ahead of McCarthy by two points in a Times poll last month, while McCarthy retook the lead by four points in the poll last week. Levine finished two points behind Boxer and six points behind McCarthy in the most recent poll. Because the margin of error in the polls is five points, the race is considered too close to call.

McCarthy’s own presence in the new commercial is subtle: a small picture of the lieutenant governor appears at the end of the spot next to his name in small type.

McCarthy’s campaign manager, Roy Behr, said Boxer’s attempt to portray herself as a fighter who will change things in Washington is deceptive.

“She’s portraying herself as something she’s not,” Behr said. “She is in fact a member of the . . . congressional club who engages in all of the perks and privileges that people are upset about.”

Kapolczynski countered that it was “more than a little hypocritical” for McCarthy to position himself as an outsider. The 30-year veteran of public office in California has long enjoyed the perks that accompany state government, she said.

Referring to the use of government aircraft for overseas travel, Kapolczynski said Boxer has made six trips in her 10 years in Congress. All were legitimate business trips, Kapolczynski said, including a tour of the Persian Gulf just before the war started.

The ad “attempts to stretch the truth a little and make it sound like John Sununu going to the dentist,” she said. “There was never anything of that sort.”

As for the pay raise, it included the abolition of honorariums, which Boxer considered an important reform, Kapolczynski said.

Kapolczynski accused McCarthy of canceling debate appearances and resorting to the negative ad in response to polling data last month that showed his campaign stalling. McCarthy missed two debates last week, one in San Francisco because his son was graduating from law school and another in Los Angeles because it conflicted with a speech in Long Beach, his staff said.

“It’s too bad the race has gotten negative,” Kapolczynski said, “but we are ready for it.”