CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Frustrated Herschensohn Says He’ll Start Attacking Boxer

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bruce Herschensohn acknowledged Tuesday that his issues-focused campaign has failed to make any headway against Democratic foe Barbara Boxer and that he will have to go on the attack.

Herschensohn said he planned to develop a more aggressive campaign strategy during the next several days.

“You’ve got to win,� Herschensohn said in an interview. “There’s only x-many weeks before the election, 5 1/2 or something like that.�

As the Nov. 3 election nears, Boxer has held commanding leads in statewide opinion polls in the fight with Herschensohn for the six-year Senate seat now held by Democrat Alan Cranston.

Herschensohn, a conservative Los Angeles television commentator, said he was frustrated that Boxer, a liberal Democratic congresswoman from Marin County, had refused in their two joint forums to defend her writing of overdrafts on the U.S. House bank and her voting to maintain Congressional perquisites.

A Boxer aide said the congresswoman did defend herself by explaining that she had co-sponsored pending legislation that would eliminate all special privileges for members of Congress.

Also Tuesday, the Herschensohn campaign launched its first television ad since July, attacking Congress--but not Boxer personally--for spending on perquisites.

In the ad, Herschensohn criticizes, among other things, the hiring of 14 Capitol elevator operators. Speaking into the camera in his husky commentator tones, Herschensohn asks, “Can’t they push the buttons themselves? You can . . . on Election Day.�

Herschensohn said he regrets making a promise after the June 2 primary to not make Boxer’s 143 House bank checks an issue.

In their first forum Sept. 12, Herschensohn devoted his opening statement to a series of Boxer votes and actions involving the House bank and congressional perquisites. He said he did not consider that to be negative campaigning since he made the allegations face to face and she had an opportunity to respond directly.

“I was looking her in the eye, giving the dates (of votes) so that she, and also the press, would have reference to them,� Herschensohn said in the interview, adding that Boxer declined to defend herself.

Herschensohn did the same in the second forum in San Francisco on Monday night, which was televised live on the C-SPAN cable television network.

“And I hoped that she would respond to them in this one. . . . She never got to it and it’s too bad because I’d rather do that in front of her and hear her response than I would to do this in speeches behind her back.�

In response, Karen Olick, a Boxer aide, noted that Boxer “looked him in the eye� Monday night and told Herschensohn she was the co-sponsor of legislation to eliminate all congressional perquisites.

Herschensohn said “it goes against my nature� to make personal campaign attacks. “But I’ve got to because people don’t know the differences (between the candidates) and if she’s the only one defining them, and she is, it’s going to work to my detriment.�

Herschensohn said he would develop a strategy this week during a trip to New York and Washington for fund-raising events, including a dinner with former President Richard M. Nixon in New York tonight. “I’d better know how we’re going to frame this thing by the time I get back.�

Olick said it was ironic that Herschensohn proposed in a TV ad in July that the two candidates stage “a great campaign of ideas� and that he now “launches the first negative ad of the campaign.� But Herschensohn said of the ads he has filmed so far: “No one would say they’re hard-hitting. They’re not.�

By “great campaign of ideas,� Herschensohn meant a proposed statewide tour of California by the two candidates, who would debate each other weekly without any moderator or questioners.

While Herschensohn has said that personal attacks are “against my nature,� his campaign has not felt bound by any restrictions. Ken Khachigian, Herschensohn’s veteran campaign manager, sends periodic memos to the press containing tough anti-Boxer rhetoric.

In one, commenting on her refusal to debate weekly, Khachigian wrote that “Ms. Boxer is cheating the California voters and appears fearful of having her out-of-touch leftist views tested in the public arena.�