- Hard to believe, but this fall those two accented icons,
Greek-born Arianna Huffington and Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger,
may well be battling to the wire to take the California governorship away
from sad sack Gray Davis, who has embarrassed himself to near unanimous
public contempt in the state.
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- Recent polls show Davis's approval ratings at less than
25 percent. More than half of registered voters say they would send the
unpopular governor to the sidelines in a recall election, a number that's
bound to increase if there are viable candidates in line to take over.
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- With 1.2 million signatures already collected, the California
recall election is a foregone conclusion at this point. After the signatures
have been verified by the Secretary of State, there is an 80-day campaign
period, set by the obscure recall law (which has never resulted in an actual
recall vote any time before in California history).
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- With all the major California Democrats frozen on the
sidelines (if one of them breaks from supporting Davis, the governor is
a sure goner), there is a huge opening for an independent candidate who
has resources, visibility and populist credentials. Politics, like nature,
abhors a vacuum, and many California progressives are grinning ear to ear,
thinking what was until very recently unthinkable Ð that they could
have a horse in this race.
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- That progressive candidate is Arianna Huffington, the
wealthy, brilliant writer and TV personality who has confounded progressive
circles with her transformation over the past six years from the conservative
wife of Republican Congressman Michael Huffington to influential populist
leader. Huffington has emerged as arguably the most visible and effective
progressive female leader in America.
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- So the buzz is on, with meetings breaking out around
the state among activists and progressive politicos urging Huffington to
run. Nationally respected African American organizer and attorney Van Jones
- who heads the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in San Francisco - is
one of the people supporting a Huffington bid for governor. Jones is telling
his people that Arianna is "anti-drug war, tough on corporate abuse,
anti-war, anti-Bush, pro-environment, pro-electoral reform Ð and smart
as hell. If anybody could pull this off, it would be Arianna."
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- Another Huffington fan is producer Robert Greenwald,
co-founder with Mike Farrell of Artists United Against the War, which effectively
mobilized major Hollywood talent to speak out against the invasion of Iraq.
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- Greenwald says, "It is a sad day, when progressives
would be stuck in the horrible situation of being asked to support Gray
Davis, who represents much that is wrong and rotten with the electoral
system and whose record on social justice issues is unacceptable. What
stresses me the most is how Davis has been a puppet for the prison guard
union and an advocate of the policy of locking up more and more people
for longer and longer times, while the state falls off the budget cliff.
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- "Arianna would be a huge breath of fresh air. She's
got new thinking and dynamic politics and she would put an attractive populist
agenda front and center forcing a new kind of debate in California politics."
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- Huffington, whose last two books were "How To Overthrow
The Government" and "Pigs At The Trough: How Corporations Are
Stealing Democracy," is a dazzling media performer. Articulate, funny
and self-deprecating - she jokingly refers to her previous political life
as her "Republican interregnum" - she is also an effective organizer
and mobilizer. Recently she took on the auto industry with the "The
Detroit Project," which she describes as "Our grassroots campaign
to prod Detroit automakers to build cars that will get Americans to work
in the morning without sending us to war in the afternoon Ð cars that
will end our dependence on foreign oil."
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- Huffington and her team produced a pair of impressive
TV ads that received worldwide attention, including segments on the Today
Show, Good Morning America, the NBC Nightly News and The O'Reilly Factor,
as well as a spate of articles in papers like the New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
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- Despite concern about her conservative past, thousands
of leaders and activists have become committed Huffington fans, as she
generously publicizes their work, raises money for their causes and carves
out a very visible public persona. She was recently honored by the Los
Angles-based Liberty Hill Fund, which supports grassroots groups fighting
for social and economic justice in Southern California.
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- Huffington, a former debating champion, has an encyclopedic
knowledge of the issues. One can just imagine her in a debate with Schwarzenegger.
The Terminator, by the way, is no slouch on the issues and is actually
a moderate, in contrast to other Republicans. He supports gay and abortion
rights and is in favor of gun control, but the contrasts between the two
would still be stark. Greenwald notes that a debate between the two "will
be like the Hybrid vs. the Hummer." Schwarzenegger works closely with
Hummer designers and actually has one of the massive gas-guzzling cars
named after him.
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- If you're not familiar with the California recall deal,
it is bizarre. Virtually any candidate can get on the ballot with a tiny
signature threshold, which suggests there may be dozens of candidates.
Voters will be asked essentially two questions: 1) Do you support the recall
of Gray Davis; and 2) Who should replace him if he is recalled? Whoever
has a plurality of votes Ð which could be as few as 20 percent Ð
wins and takes the helm as governor the next day.
-
- The Davis recall has been engineered by conservative
San Diego County Congressman and car alarm millionaire Darrell Issa, also
a candidate to replace Davis. Issa has been twice arrested (though not
convicted) for car theft.
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- Huffington's former husband, conservative Congressman
and Texas oil heir Michael Huffington, narrowly lost in a bid to unseat
Diane Feinstein in the 1996 Senate race. Michael Huffington came out as
gay after that election loss, the two separated, and Arianna has undergone
a very visible transformation from the right to the populist left. She
was a regular guest on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, where she
moved out of the right-wing seat, due in part to what she has said was
Robert Scheer's political persuasion.
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- The reason a Huffington candidacy would need to be taken
seriously is that sooner or later, California labor and progressive leaders
and Democrats are going to have to come up with a candidate to support
should Davis lose. Naturally, they will advise voting against the recall,
but the second question on the ballot remains: If the governor is recalled
who should be the new governor?
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- If the Dems don't provide an option and Davis is recalled
they are guaranteeing a Republican takeover in Sacramento Ð either
Schwarzenegger or someone much worse, such as the inept Bill Simon, who
despite his inexperience and failure on the campaign trail lost to Davis
by only a relatively small margin.
-
- The street wisdom here is that it's all about momentum.
There's nothing on the horizon that suggests Davis will be able to derail
the runaway recall train. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the one candidate lots
of Republican voters hope can snatch victory out of the clutches of defeat.
Behind-the-scenes gossip suggests that should Davis's numbers look bad,
Diane Feinstein will jump in at the last minute to save the Democratic
party. As the new governor, she would then be able to appoint her successor
in the Senate. A lot of things could go awry with that scenario, however
Ð and two of them are Arianna Huffington and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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- Don Hazen is executive editor of AlterNet.
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- <http://www.alternet.org/>
- http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16397
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