Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jul 2003
Source: Ventura County Star (CA)
Copyright: 2003, The E.W. Scripps Co.
Contact:  http://www.staronline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/479
Author: Dion Nissenbaum, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Arianna+Huffington (Arianna Huffington)

ACTIVISTS TRY TO RECRUIT ARIANNA HUFFINGTON TO REPLACE DAVIS IN RECALL

SACRAMENTO - In a state trying to come to terms with the
extraordinary prospect of ousting its governor and replacing him with
the Terminator, Bay area activists are stirring things up even more by
trying to recruit reformed conservative Arianna Huffington to enter
the race as the progressive alternative.

The possibility of the SUV-hating Arianna squaring off against the
Hummer-loving Arnold for the right to replace California Gov. Gray
Davis is creating a buzz from San Francisco to Santa Monica. One eager
supporter has already dubbed the potential matchup "The Hybrid vs. the
Hummer."

In any other election, the notion of progressive Californians rallying
behind Huffington might seem strange. She's a onetime anti-feminist
Republican, New-Age devotee who divorced her husband after the former
California congressman outed himself as gay in Esquire magazine.

Yet Arianna advocates say the movement to draft the syndicated
columnist seems to be gathering steam.

Leading the charge is Bay area activist Van Jones, director of the
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in San Francisco. Jones and the
fledgling campaign are preparing to unveil their Web site --
www.RunAriannaRun.com -- to generate enthusiasm.

"She's anti-drug war, tough on corporate crime, anti-war, anti-Bush,
pro-environment, pro-electoral reform -- and smart as hell," Jones
wrote in an e-mail sent out last week to dozens of activists. "If
anybody could pull this off, it would be Arianna."

So far, Huffington has done nothing to knock down the idea. Jones said
Friday that Huffington was "flattered, but noncommittal," when he
recently raised the idea with her, and vowed to talk to him more about
it when she returns from an overseas vacation in two weeks.

Huffington couldn't be reached, and her office assistant declined to
comment.

But that isn't stopping the movement, which is already drawing
surprise support from Green Party candidate Peter Camejo, who said he
might bow out of the race and support Huffington if she embraces a
progressive agenda.

"I'd be perfectly willing to withdraw and consider supporting someone
else," Camejo said Friday. "I think it could be rather interesting if
she got into the race."

The Draft Arianna movement arose out of simmering concerns among
left-leaning Californians that the Democratic Party's strategy of
supporting Davis by keeping other Democrats off the ballot is a
"suicide mission."

The prospect of having no one to support as an alternative if Davis is
ousted has many liberals nervous. In a recall election, voters would
be asked two questions: whether Davis should be recalled, and who
should be his replacement. If enough Californians vote to oust Davis,
the alternative candidate with the most votes would quickly take over.

"I think the recall is despicable," said Hollywood film producer
Robert Greenwald, a liberal activist pushing Arianna's candidacy. "But
.. given Gray Davis' position on everything from corporate money to
prison guards to social justice, there's no possible way I could find
myself in a position of supporting him."

Although some liberals are sympathetic to Camejo's campaign, many say
he has neither the cash nor the cachet to win. Huffington has both.

With Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger signaling he might join
the battle to oust Davis, liberals began trolling for an alternative.
Greenwald and Jones had the same epiphany: Arianna Huffington.

The 53-year-old daughter of a Greek newspaper publisher has undergone
a political transformation in recent years. Once a darling of the
right, she's now a darling of the left.

She began her career as a conservative who questioned the feminist
movement and castigated liberal ideas.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Huffington abandoned her Lincoln Navigator for
an energy-efficient hybrid Toyota and took gas-guzzling Americans to
task. Earlier this year, she helped produce television commercials
spoofing federal government ads that linked casual drug use to
international terrorism. Huffington's ads suggested that SUV-driving
Americans were helping to fund terrorists by gobbling up oil from the
Middle East.

Huffington began her life in America as an ambitious New York
socialite. She married Michael Huffington a few years before he
launched his brief political career by spending $5 million in 1992 to
represent Santa Barbara in Congress. Two years later, he lost a costly
battle to unseat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

During the race, Arianna Huffington was portrayed as the power behind
the throne who was manipulating her less-astute husband for her own
political gain. She was forced to admit her ties to a California New
Age guru and that they had hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake