Source: Politics<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES \u2014 Several of her House colleagues are already running for her Senate seat. She isn\u2019t raising real money. And it\u2019s so widely assumed that Sen. Dianne Feinstein<\/a> is on her way out that Nancy Pelosi<\/a>, the former House speaker, felt free this week to publicly endorse a would-be successor \u2014 if Feinstein retires.<\/p>\n An extreme awkwardness has fallen over California political circles, where virtually everyone is acting as if Feinstein is done, but without her explicitly saying so. It\u2019s the electoral equivalent of clearing the dessert from the dinner table as one guest sits there, nibbling at the main course chicken dish that had been served hours prior.<\/p>\n \u201cGod bless her,\u201d said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who has worked on major statewide campaigns in California. \u201cBut the most pathetic part of politics is when somebody doesn\u2019t know when it\u2019s time to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n Feinstein, the longest-serving Democrat in the Senate, is in the midst of one of the most uneasy codas to a political career. Her extended pre-departure has, for many of her fellow Democrats, turned into an abject lesson in the perils of hanging on.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s still the state\u2019s senior senator,\u201d said one longtime Democratic strategist in California. \u201cAnd they\u2019re dancing on her [political] grave.\u201d<\/p>\n The oldest member of Congress at 89, Feinstein has for decades been a fixture in Democratic politics here. But as the electorate in California shifted, her brand of centrism fell out of step with her party\u2019s progressive base \u2014 so much so that the California Democratic Party in the 2018 primary declined to endorse her reelection bid<\/a>. She ran and won handily anyway.<\/p>\n More problematic for Feinstein has been the persistent questions about her health. Even Democrats sympathetic to the senator have been reading headlines about her cognitive fitness to serve<\/a>. The stories about it pop up with such regularity now that they no longer elicit the shock value of the early versions, when publication of such matters seemed to be violating some unwritten code of D.C. conduct.<\/p>\n Feinstein\u2019s office has long batted down such talk, saying she has her full facilities and remains utterly capable of executing the job of senator to the nation\u2019s most populous state. Still, it\u2019s a long way from the days of Harvey Milk<\/a> or the \u201cyear of the woman<\/a>\u201d when she and Barbara Boxer became the first women elected to the Senate from California in 1992. Heck, it\u2019s a long way from 2019, when Annette Bening was portraying her as an anti-torture, Bush administration-fighting crusader in the political drama \u201cThe Report.\u201d<\/p>\n In California, Democrats are left looking for signs that she, too, sees that the show is coming to a close. That includes even those supporting her.<\/p>\n After Feinstein this week reported raising less than $600 in the last fundraising period<\/a>, one of her small-dollar donors, a Carlsbad, Calif., man named William Betts, said, \u201cI have some automatic payments in there that are still ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would much prefer a younger candidate, certainly anybody from Gen X,\u201d he said. \u201cMy preference is that she retires.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of California would appear to be ready for that. In a Berkeley IGS Poll<\/a> taken about a year ago, Feinstein\u2019s job approval rating in the state hit an all-time low of 30 percent. An October measure by the Public Policy Institute of California put her approval rating higher, at 41 percent among likely voters, but still underwater.<\/p>\n \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been much that\u2019s been said in terms of her recent leadership that\u2019s been positive,\u201d said Mark Baldassare, director of the poll. \u201cIt really has been a while since I\u2019ve read or heard glowing remarks about her.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, he said that if he was polling on the Senate race now, he would include her.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil further notice,\u201d he said, \u201cshe\u2019s the senator.\u201d<\/p>\n But almost everyone else in California, it seems \u2014 some more gently than others \u2014 is preparing for her not to be. Pelosi, before issuing her conditional endorsement of Rep. Adam Schiff<\/a> (D-Calif.), said that if Feinstein does seek reelection, \u201cshe has my whole-hearted support.\u201d But no politician puts out that kind of statement if they expect her to. Schiff and Rep. Katie Porter<\/a> (D-Calif.) are already running. Rep. Barbara Lee<\/a> (D-Calif.), has told her colleagues she plans to<\/a>. Rep Ro Khanna<\/a> (D-Calif.) is giving consideration to the race.<\/p>\n The already declared candidacies, in turn, have ignited a scramble among eager Democrats downstream from them to announce campaigns for their soon-to-be-open House seats.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like all of them are handling it professionally, and honoring Dianne,\u201d said Bob Mulholland, a veteran Democratic strategist and former Democratic National Committee member.<\/p>\n Even if the rush to fill a chair that Feinstein still occupies is, collectively, \u201cpretty tasteless,\u201d as one Democratic strategist described it, it may be hard to fault politically. The California primary will be in March of 2024 \u2014 just more than a year away \u2014 and candidates will need to raise tens of millions of dollars to compete in the state\u2019s enormous media markets.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s sad about this is that she\u2019s always been somebody you didn\u2019t dare mess around with,\u201d the strategist said. \u201cAnd it looks like that\u2019s just gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Already, Schiff is raising money and Porter, with her whiteboards out<\/a>, is bringing in cash too. At her first campaign event, in Northern California last month, she told the crowd it\u2019s time for \u201ca fresh new voice\u201d in the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n For her part, Feinstein has hardly batted an eye at the spectacle surrounding her, even if the pre-announcement announcements run counter to what Boxer adviser Rose Kapolczynski called \u201ca long tradition of deference.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe senator has said on a few occasions the more the merrier<\/a>,\u201d a Feinstein spokesperson said. Of Feinstein\u2019s own timeline, she told Bloomberg News<\/a> that she\u2019ll announce plans \u201cin the spring sometime.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot in the winter,\u201d Feinstein said. \u201cI don\u2019t announce in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n If she does announce her retirement, it may dramatically shift the opinion her constituents have of her. Politicians are often more popular when they go.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be all the usual retrospectives about her career and her groundbreaking moments, and gun control and abortion and Harvey Milk and all of that,\u201d Kapolczynski said. \u201cThere\u2019ll be an afterglow. Once you announce you\u2019re not running again, you get an afterglow from the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n That will likely come no matter when Feinstein makes her announcement. And after 30 years in the Senate, some Democrats say, she has clearly earned the right to make her plans on whatever timeline she likes.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she\u2019s been a great senator, but you know \u2026 the writing\u2019s been on the wall all for a while,\u201d said Steve Maviglio, a former New Hampshire state lawmaker and Democratic strategist in California. \u201cI think she wants to bow out on her terms.\u201d<\/p>\n