Huffington Under the Spotlight as GOP Meets

As Republicans gather this weekend for their election season state convention, the U.S. Senate race poses a vexing question GOP leaders face almost every election year: Can you have party unity and a party primary at the same time?

Republican candidate William E. Dannemeyer wants a fight, a good fight, because he believes it is the only way to prevent the party from making the mistake of nominating Rep. Michael Huffington, regarded as a strong favorite by all the political experts. Huffington, 44, is a wealthy former Texas oilman who plans to finance much of his own campaign.

“Some people believe that a cause is advanced by reducing controversy--quieting the waters, so to speak,” said Dannemeyer, a former Orange County congressman. “I think that strength comes from diversity and a primary challenge is healthy. It sorts things out.”

Huffington (R-Santa Barbara) is largely unknown to California Republicans and his biggest job at this election-year kickoff is to introduce himself to party activists and persuade them that he is the best chance they have at unseating Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November.

But Friday night, in his first speech to a California Republican convention, the 44-year-old freshman found that may not be easy. A group of young conservative activists littered the convention room where the Senate candidates spoke with bogus dollar bills to illustrate their complaint that he is trying to buy the election. And his speech was interrupted several times by hecklers.

The auditorium was so tense before the candidates spoke, with a standing-room-only crowd, that Republican Party Chairman Tirso del Junco appealed for calm before introducing the speakers. Nonetheless, the audience erupted into competing chants for Huffington and Dannemeyer.

Dannemeyer warned the Republicans that Huffington is a liberal candidate and voters will find little reason to support him over Feinstein. “It does us no good if we have a carbon copy of the liberal Democrat,” he said.

Huffington had some surprises of his own. Before he was introduced, Huffington was joined on the dais by Sen. Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas and a friend of Huffington’s. The audience did not miss the message, even though the Republican Party is supposed to be neutral in GOP primaries and Gramm is the head of the Republican National Senatorial Committee.

Huffington appealed to the delegates to set aside their differences. “I want to hear your ideas,criticisms and suggestions,” he said. “We can make this great Golden State of ours whole and prosperous again.”

In the evening’s most dramatic moment, Kate Squires, the only other Republican candidate in the primary, almost fainted during her speech. After Squires, a little-known Riverside businesswoman, had spoken about five minutes, she dropped her hands to her waist and began listing backward. The other two candidates caught her and laid her across a line of chairs.

A doctor in the audience rushed onto the stage. After about two minutes she resumed her speech to a standing ovation.

The state Republican convention has long been a place where social moderates have been cautioned to enter at their own risk. The 2,500 delegates tend to be dominated by the most conservative side of the party.

In 1992, hundreds of delegates walked out on a speech given by former GOP Sen. John Seymour. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson has had several uncomfortable visits with his state party’s convention.

Wilson is scheduled to speak at a luncheon today and is expected to address the achievements of his first term.

Whatever reception Huffington receives, GOP leaders are optimistic that the convention will succeed in uniting Republicans for the upcoming elections. Party leaders say the Democrats’ success in 1992--winning two Senate races, the White House and a number of contested state legislative seats--has done more for unity than years of internal diplomacy.

“The strength of the Republican Party has always been our ability to come together despite our internal differences, and in 1992 we forgot that,” said Dan Schnur, spokesman for the governor. “We acted like Democrats and we got our clocks cleaned. Nobody wants a repeat of that, so we’re all working harder than ever to keep this party united.”

The most obvious sign of peace within the ranks is the lack of any divisive resolutions proposed for the convention to debate. In the past, resolutions opposing abortion rights and gay rights were standard topics.

But Huffington is likely to face some critics.

Huffington spent more than $5 million of his own money--a national record--to unseat Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) in 1992. It was a controversial entrance for Huffington because he had just moved to California from Texas and in his first run for office ended the career of a popular 20-year House veteran.

Now Huffington is appealing for calm and pledging to represent all segments of the party.

“My message is, let’s come together,” he said recently. Asked how he plans to unite his GOP support, he said: “Through force of personality, I will. I think the party is ready to be united.”

Huffington has appealed to conservatives by highlighting his support for some of their key issues. He aired a recent television commercial about family values, he is co-chairman of the campaign for the “three strikes” anti-crime initiative and his speeches are peppered with anti-tax, small government rhetoric.

But on the social issues that have been most contentious he moves toward the left within the party. He supports abortion rights, tougher gun laws, gays in the military and President Clinton’s Family Leave Act.

“Mr. Huffington has a real problem within the party (because) what he is purporting to be and what he says he has done in the past don’t match,” said Greg Hardcastle, president of the conservative California Republican Assembly. “The only question is, can Huffington buy California off?”

Even some of those conservatives who like Dannemeyer say, however, that the 64-year-old champion of the religious right is not the answer. He lost to Seymour in the 1992 Senate primary by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.

Times staff writer Kenneth Weiss contributed to this story.