Posted on 08/04/2003 10:23:30 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In a state trying to come to terms with the extraordinary prospect of ousting its governor and replacing him with the Terminator, activists in the San Francisco Bay area 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.
`ANTI-DRUG WAR'
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 have unveiled a Web site -- www.RunAriannaRun.com -- to generate en- thusiasm.
''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 email sent out last month 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 Huffington was ''flattered, but noncommittal'' when he recently raised the idea with her, and vowed to talk to him more about it.
Huffington couldn't be reached for 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 em- braces a progressive agenda.
''I'd be perfectly willing to withdraw and consider supporting someone else,'' Camejo said. ``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. Arianna has both.
With Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger toying with joining the battle to oust Davis, liberals began trolling for an alternative. Greenwald and Jones had the same epiphany: Arianna.
DARLING OF THE LEFT
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 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 to acknowledge that they had hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny.
After Huffington admitted he was gay, Arianna divorced him and began a career as a political pundit.
The reporter gives away her bias with the phrase, "reformed conservative" to describe Arianna Huffington. I bet this reporter NEVER used the term "reformed liberal" to describe a liberal who turned conservative.
This article FAILS to mention the most important thing about why Arianna won't run---If her ex-hubby Michael runs and since he filed papers to run for governor, that means Arianna WON'T be running.
Other than explain Arianna's flip-flops on her being post-menopausal, I think she's been trying to reinvent herself into a female version of Christopher Hitchens -- fiercely independent, defying of any attempt to label, and always contrarian for the heck of it. Her problem is that she's just a silly person, and doesn't have the intellect of Hitchens (nor the integrity).
He's running he's not running. He's running, he's not running...
What's the deal with Arnold? I suspect the left out there is just using his name to get their people stirred up.
calgov2002:
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Gosh, even when she was nominally conservative I couldn't stand her. Did anyone ever like her? I think the only reason newspapers ran her column is she was a safe conservative whose columns no one would read.
Tia Carrere?
And further, what's with Noelia Rodriguez?
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