Sen. Dianne Feinstein opens up about women in politics

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has some advice for women interested in politics: Don’t get too big for your britches.

“Start locally,” the Democrat said, warning, “don’t think you can just jump into a federal race with no experience.”

“If you want to run, run. For a school board, run for the city council. Get your portfolio of expertise. Do your apprenticeship,” she continued. “One of the problems that we have, I think, are women that think they can automatically run for the top office without doing that apprenticeship. And some win, and most lose.”

The exchange came during an hourlong town hall, focused mostly on national security and California’s crippling drought Wednesday night at a Santa Monica hotel. The evening’s most personal query came from Cynthia Avalos, who will be starting a position at the U.S. Embassy in Greece this fall: What is the senator’s advice for young women starting in politics?

Feinstein’s responses on other issues had been quick and direct, but she paused for a moment before offering her thoughts, formed over a more than four-decade elected career.

The quip, which could be seen as a jab at Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard chief executive who lost a bid for the U.S. Senate in 2010, drew laughs from the friendly audience for a dinner hosted by the World Affairs Council and Townhall Los Angeles.

That race against Barbara Boxer was the businesswoman’s first run for public office but not her last. Fiorina is now one of 17 GOP candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

Once an afterthought in the crowded field, Fiorina is now fending off attacks from fellow Republicans as she fights for a slot at a Sept. 16 debate that CNN will host at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley.

At the dinner, Feinstein said the outlook for female politicians seeking office had improved drastically since she was first elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969.

“I could see it in women’s eyes, ‘Why are you doing this? You must have a bad marriage,’ ” she said. “Those things, that’s all gone. And women will support other women.”

Earlier in the evening, Feinstein recalled having doubts about her political career after she lost a bid for mayor of San Francisco and the death of her husband, Bertram Feinstein, in 1978.

“I was convinced I was not electable,” she said.

The assassination of Harvey Milk and then-Mayor George Moscone on Nov. 27, 1978, in San Francisco changed Feinstein. She was the first to find Milk’s body and broke the news to the world.

She later replaced Moscone as mayor and went on to win two terms of her own.

“I’m stubborn,” she said.

Asked by Terry McCarthy, the president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, whether she will run for another term in 2018, the 82-year-old didn’t provide an answer.

“Oh, we’ll see,” she said to applause from the audience.

If philanthropist Eli Broad had his way, Feinstein would be pursuing higher political ventures.

“She ought to be our first woman president,” he said at the beginning of the event during his introduction.

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