Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jul 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Page: F1
Contact:  229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Russ Baker
Bookmark: MAP's link to shadow convention items:
       http://www.mapinc.org/shadow.htm

Note: Shadow Convention websites:
       http://www.drugpolicy.org/
       http://www.shadowconventions.com/

AT HOME WITH ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Honing The Politics Of Surprise

POLITICAL insiders may debate the motivations behind the latest
evolutionary twist in the remarkable life of Arianna Huffington, but
one thing is certain: Ms. Huffington understands the element of surprise.

She stood by her desk in her elegant, sun-dappled home office on a
perfect Southern California morning early this week, talking about her
latest and indisputably biggest adventure. Up on a landing a library
wall panel swung open, revealing a hidden room. A young woman popped
out, and then a second entered from another part of the house, climbed
the spiral staircase and disappeared behind the bookcase.

"How many people can you fit in a Volkswagen?" Ms. Huffington cracked
delightedly in her Greek-with-a-touch-of-London accent, as she settled
into a gold brocade sofa. Ms. Huffington explained that she had
converted a guest bedroom off the landing into an office for the two
staff members and the handful of paid interns helping her and a
coalition of citizens groups stage a happening certain to give fits to
Al Gore and George W. Bush -- a milestone of sorts on Ms. Huffington's
dizzying political journey from right to left.

This summer, as the Republican and Democratic Parties hold their
national conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, shadow
conventions will convene nearby, providing a running commentary and
critique, with teach-ins, reform politicians and stand-up comedians.

The goal of Ms. Huffington and the Internet impresario Peter Hirshberg
is to "give voice to millions of Americans currently shut out of the
national debate." Perhaps coincidentally, Ms. Huffington has managed
to harness herself and her unusual ability to generate buzz on three
issues whose solutions have eluded Democrats and Republicans alike:
the tainted campaign finance system, the growing income gap and the
costly war on drugs.

Ms. Huffington has proven expert at getting attention for causes --
including herself -- during a varied career as socialite, politician's
wife, author and columnist. To publicize the shadow conventions, she
called on media favorites like Senator John McCain and the Rev. Jesse
Jackson. She joined with citizen advocacy groups like Common Cause,
and tapped her friends, including the actors Warren Beatty and Ron
Silver and the comedian Bill Maher.  She helped raise $ 400,000 in
seed money from such disparate sources as the billionaire
philanthropist George Soros's nonprofit Open Society Institute, the
Pew Charitable Trust -- and promises of ice cream from Ben & Jerry's.

"She's providing fresh and new ideas in a very thoughtful and very
provocative way," Senator McCain said. "I find her to be adding a lot
to the national debate on the issues," but, he added wryly, "I told
her I'm going to come and tell you why you should vote for Governor
Bush."

Others are more skeptical. "It's easy for someone who has maids making
her beds to talk about voiceless Americans," said Bob Mulholland, a
California Democratic Party official. "Most Americans get a kick out
of somebody like her preaching to the rest of us."

People may argue about why a former right-wing conservative, who once
counted herself among Newt Gingrich's most loyal friends and admirers,
is now encouraging her troops to lob grenades at the establishment.
But no one can dispute that this is one determined woman.

Last week, she took a red-eye to New York for a shadow convention
planning luncheon, flew to Athens to pick up her two preteenage
daughters, rocketed back to Santa Barbara for a weekend drug policy
retreat (and her 50th birthday dinner) then back to Los Angeles for
the party she was throwing for Norman Mailer's wife, Norris Church,
who was celebrating her first novel, "Windchill Summer" (Random House).

Liberals are often willing to put aside political differences when
dinner and a little glamour are at stake.  Fine wines and lovely
surroundings (including a portrait of Ms. Huffington by Francoise
Gilot, Picasso's mistress) don't hurt. Which may explain why about 80
people came to the event, including Marla Maples (who is marrying Mr.
Mailer's son) and Mr. Beatty, who showed up late.

Ms. Huffington swept down her spiral staircase in a flowing, graphite,
pinstriped linen pantsuit, seemingly eager that everything be perfect
and everyone have a grand time. The guests seemed equally concerned
that they flatter her sufficiently for a return invitation.

The crowd included Ms. Huffington's extensive supporting cast,
including her wardrobe designer and the Los Angeles celebrity chef
Hans Rockenwagner, who is doing the food for the shadow convention,
Ms. Huffington announced. Then she pointed out Antonio Villaraigosa,
the former Speaker of the California State Assembly and a current Los
Angeles mayoral candidate, whom she had urged to be a presenter at the
event. "I'm trying to get the shadow convention into every
conversation," she said conspiratorially.

Ms. Huffington's life has been one of constant motion, and -- in the
spirit of her nemesis Al Gore -- regular reinvention. Born Arianna
Stassinopoulos, she grew up in modest circumstances in and around
Athens, became a stellar debater at Cambridge and soon had her first
book, a critique of feminism, and a second, prescribing a spiritual
revolution as an antidote to an empty, materialistic society. She
landed in 1980 in New York, penned a controversial best seller about
the opera legend Maria Callas and then a harsh denunciation of
Picasso. While living in California, she was introduced by the
socialite Ann Getty to Michael Huffington, the shy son of a self-made
oil millionaire, and they married and settled in Washington.

Although dismissed by some as a gold digger, Ms. Huffington showed
resourcefulness when it became apparent that Michael's income as an
arms-control negotiator for President George Bush was insufficient to
support their lifestyle and that his real worth was bound up in with
stock in the family firm. She went on the lecture circuit to pay the
bills for their Georgetown home and staff.

In 1992, Mr. Huffington ran for Congress from Santa Barbara. Within
two years, he made a bid for the Senate, spending nearly $30 million
of his own money. The seemingly reticent candidate often seemed
overshadowed by his dynamic wife, who virtually directed the vitriolic
campaign.

He lost by 2 percentage points. Ms. Huffington turned her attention to
her column, cheerleading for the conservative Contract With America
and becoming a power hostess, Tina Brown with a Melina Mercouri accent.

Television beckoned.

Between frequent spots on "Politically Incorrect," she started her own
think tank, the Center for Effective Compassion. It stressed private
charity, rather than government aid, for helping the poor. The group
fizzled, and so did her marriage.

She confided that she is seeing no one special right now and will not
discuss her divorce settlement or any details of her marriage to Mr.
Huffington, who revealed his homosexuality in a 1999 Esquire profile.

Three years ago, the Huffingtons relocated to separate houses in Los
Angeles. Reluctant at first to leave Washington, Ms. Huffington
nevertheless found her perfect roost, in the Brentwood section of Los
Angeles, an affluent but understated area near the ocean.

The house is a yellow Italianate, built in the 1920's, with four
bedrooms, a foyer with an arched Romanesque ceiling, a French garden
hidden behind dense foliage and plenty of room to entertain. "I didn't
want anything big and pretentious, you know, some of these big Beverly
Hills homes," she said.

In California, her views shifted leftward.

Soon, as in Washington, her home became a salon.

The Capitol Hill and think tank types were replaced by Mr. Beatty; Pat
Caddell, a Jimmy Carter pollster and now a consultant for television's
"West Wing"; and Richard Walden, head of Operation USA, a
humanitarian-relief group that uses its Hollywood connections to get
aid into atypical recipient countries, including Cuba. Her columns
seemed to gradually uncouple from the conservative express.

SHE now is the host of about one book party a month, plus frequent
dinners. The writer Christopher Hitchens noted that Ms. Huffington had
held a party for the release of his book on President Clinton.

"She is the salon of Los Angeles," said Michael Jackson, a popular Los
Angeles radio talk show host, who attended Ms. Huffington's party on
Monday night for Norris Church Mailer. "There's nobody who can attract
the variety and caliber that she does."

Ms. Huffington can play the wonk: she's full of statistics about
poverty and racial disparities in drug convictions, gleaned from her
correspondents and assembled by her research assistant.

But when asked to compare her current and former allies, she turns
pure politico: "I think these distinctions are completely obsolete.

A lot of my friends are just as disenchanted with the Democratic Party
as I am with the Republicans."

But the fact is, her new crowd is a whole lot more left, filled, for
example, with correspondents for The Nation magazine, who have been
openly squabbling with colleagues over whether Ms. Huffington's change
of heart is to be trusted. One convert is Mr. Hitchens, who had
ridiculed her in print, he said, recalling Ms. Huffington's dalliance
with New Age cults and the subsequent Gingrich era. "Maybe she's
finally found a safe harbor."

Change came from her unsuccessful efforts to assist poverty-fighting
groups. "I saw how much harder it was to raise money for them than it
was to raise money for the opera or a fashionable museum," she said.
"So I have definitely shifted my view on the role of government funding."

Ms. Huffington also lost patience with her conservative allies and
their promises of attacking poverty their way. "It's now six years
since the Republican takeover of Congress, and none of these things
have been accomplished. There was not a collective will."

Robert Scheer, the liberal Los Angeles Times columnist who has been a
regular sparring partner of Huffington in both print and on radio for
years, said: "If Arianna were a man, there would be no attacks on her
whatsoever. Sure, she's shifted her views.

Sure, she's inconsistent. Sure, she likes to be on TV. But I find her
one of the brightest, most decent and hardest-working people involved
in media."

Along with her column, which appears in more than 100 newspapers and
on two Web sites, she has a recent book, "How to Overthrow the
Government" (Regan Books), a citizens' primer on the corrosive effect
of money in politics and what to do about it.

As with many nascent revolutions, the one Ms. Huffington wants to
ignite is comfortable behind the barricades. Surrounded by a buzzing,
chirping and whirring cacophony of phones, intercoms and faxes, she
maintains a sunny calm, like a queen in a madhouse.

Helping her keep a Martha Stewart-like grip on life are a nanny, a
housekeeper and a house manager, who doubles as her driver.

Light streams into her high-ceilinged home office through a cathedral
window. The walls are covered with paintings by her daughters (9 and
11), who provide the main diversion from her work-centered existence.

She especially likes taking them on Saturday hikes in the nearby
mountains.

Ms. Huffington's 78-year-old mother occupies a separate wing and until
a recent illness did all the cooking, even forcing her Greek
specialties on the FedEx man.

Ms. Huffington likes to work East Coast hours.

She's up early, phoning her contacts on Capitol Hill or in New York,
then gets her children ready for school. Her husband frequently
chauffeurs them.

The yard, where she stages events for her children's private school,
has a pool, a cage with rabbits and a hillside space where her
daughters have their vegetable garden.

As the tour ended, she led a visitor into her daughters' playroom,
where a staff worker, looking quintessentially Southern California
with a sort of Gypsy-style hairdo and dual earrings, was typing on a
laptop amid the toys. " Reliving his childhood," Ms. Huffington said,
chuckling.

Upstairs on the landing, the panel covering the hidden room was again
nearly closed. Atop it was a mischievous, 15th-century painting,
showing two laughing cardinals horsing around over a game of cards.

It was entitled "The Winning Hand."

Down below, at her desk, Ms. Huffington could be overheard on a
conference call, declaring triumphantly "Will they help? Of course,
darling."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake