What's Huuffington doing here?

The last time I spoke to Michael Huffington was five years ago-in fact, at the last state GOP convention to be held in Palm Springs. Then, less than a year after he had lost the closest and most costly U.S. Senate race in the nation, former one-term (1992-94) House member Huffington of Santa Barbara was largely ignored by most convention delegates. His moderate politics were offputting for most of them to begin with, and his largely selffunded, $27.5-million race against Democrat Dianne Feinstein, which had neither organization nor volunteers, was an embarrassment to a state party that had so emphasized grassroots activism and widespread involvement by individual donors.

Six years after his political disaster and two years after he revealed he was bisexual and divorced his wife, political gadfly Arianna, Michael Huffington was back in Palm Springs to attend his first Republican state convention in five years. Now 53, the former Santa Barbara congressman hosted a reception for fellow moderate Rep. Tom Campbell, who is challenging Feinstein this fall in what most, even at the GOP convention, think is a lost cause.

Although largely invisible in Republican politics for more than five years, Huffington explained to me that he has been making contributions to GOP candidates, primarily for the state legislature. (In this, the former congressman has been rather selective. Two years ago, for example, he contributed heavily to former staffer David Lack, a Santa Barbara contractor, in his bid for an assembly seat. But after Back lost the GOP primary to conservative Chris Mitchum, son of actor Robert Mitchum, neither Huffington nor Lack supported him in the fall, when he lost a heartbreakingly close race to leftist Democrat Hannabeth Jackson.)

Now a Los Angeles resident, Huffington said he has been investing in high-tech companies and helping build monasteries in Europe and the United States. He has also claimed to be a film producer. ("Producer of what?" exclaimed a veteran actress and former constituent of Huffington when I told her this the next day later. She said she has "never heard of single thing he has done in the industry.")

Huffington's political agenda these days is to change the nature of the GOP, specifically to bring in more homosexuals and eliminate the influence of smokers. A strong backer of federal hate crimes legislation, Huffington told me that "things are changing with regard to gays. I've spoken to George W. Bush's campaign manager and he said they don't care what the [state and national] platforms say, they are going to reach out to gays."

"And you probably don't know this, but in 1998 1 was the state co-chairman with [producer] Rob Reiner of Proposition 10:' beamed Huffington, referring to the statewide initiative to raise cigarette taxes that was narrowly enacted that year. Although most California GOP activists fought the measure, readily accept tobacco money, and freely break state anti-smoking laws by lighting up at their meetings, Huffington says he dislikes smokers and smoking because "my mother has cancer."

Huffington's supporters have claimed that he convinced Charlton Heston to break ranks with fellow Republicans and cut a radio commercial in support of "10." Heston, however, has since written friends saying it was a mistake for him to back the measure and that he did so primarily as a favor to his close friend and Reiner's father, comedian Carl Reiner.

Inevitably, Huffington was asked by reporters if he is eyeing a political comeback. Yes, he said, but only for an "executive job," such as mayor of Los Angeles, which will be open next year when incumbent Richard Riordan steps down. Huffington believes that voters would embrace an openly homosexual candidate, but he would only run and "spend the money or the time away from my kids [if] the Republican Party said, `We need you:

Asked if the party was likely to do this, state GOP spokesman Stuart DeVeaux said, "We'll see."

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Sep 29, 2000
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