Feinstein Adds Consultants in Governor’s Race : Politics: The former San Francisco mayor says she’s ready to get tough. She aims sharpest attack at Van de Kamp, asserting he’s not an effective crime fighter.

SAN FRANCISCO —  Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she has hired a new consulting team, hoping to get her struggling campaign off the ground by the beginning of the year.

Los Angeles-based political consultant William Carrick and his New York partner, Hank Morris, were signed by Feinstein to develop “day-to-day strategy” in her primary campaign against Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

Carrick, 39, won praise in the Democratic Party for his management of presidential candidate Richard Gephardt in 1988. He was credited with helping Gephardt connect particularly with older voters in Iowa.

Gephardt won the Iowa caucuses in February, 1988, and appeared briefly to be headed for a strong run in the presidential race. But the Missouri congressman ran short of money and did poorly on Super Tuesday. He dropped out after finishing badly in the Michigan caucuses in April.

Morris worked on television advertising for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s 1981 reelection and Bradley’s 1982 gubernatorial campaign.

“They are exceptional professionals,” said a statement released by Feinstein’s offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. “Their active involvement in my campaign will once and for all show that I am in this race to stay.”

Feinstein said she is ready to get to work, and to get tough. “From here on out, I’m on the campaign trail and I’ll zero in on where I differ with John Van de Kamp and Pete Wilson on critical issues,” she said. Sen. Wilson (R-Calif.) is unopposed for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

Most of her pronouncements were aimed at Van de Kamp, however.

“Let’s just look at the one area over which Van de Kamp’s supposedly been in charge the last seven years--crime.”

She noted that she has supported two reforms of the criminal justice system backed by crime victims groups, an initiative in 1982 and an initiative aimed at the June, 1990, ballot. Van de Kamp has opposed both.

“I’m far more concerned about the victims of crime than I am about criminals,” she said.

And she bored in on a subject that is perceived as one of Van de Kamp’s weak points: “When it comes to the death penalty, which the voters overwhelmingly reinstated 11 years ago, Van de Kamp just says ‘no.’ I support the death penalty.”

“It’s an outrage that hundreds of people are being gunned down in this state because of mindless turf wars over crack cocaine. While Van de Kamp sat in Sacramento and Wilson in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles became the warehouse for half the crack coming into this country, and a killing field for rival gangs.”

She offered nothing in the way of an alternative gang strategy, except to say, “It’s time for a change.”

Feinstein, 56, served as mayor of San Francisco for eight years and left office in early 1988 because a city law prevented her from seeking a third term.

She made something of a breakthrough in the tough California name-recognition game when 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale put her on his short list of potential running mates. That job ultimately went to then-Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.

Since then Feinstein has shown up well in polls asking California voters about her potential as a statewide officeholder.

As recently as February of this year, for example, Feinstein actually led the Democratic pack in the independent California Poll, getting 27% of the support of Democrats to 22% for Van de Kamp and Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, who since has announced he will seek reelection.

But in recent months Van de Kamp has been more active than Feinstein and has moved ahead of her in recent polling by the Los Angeles Times and the California Poll.

Times political writer John Balzar contributed to this story.