This Party Is Bring Your Own Bucks

Rep. Michael Huffington is like the party crasher whose gall in showing up uninvited is quickly forgiven when he brings his own vintage wine, hors d’oeuvres, gifts for the host and a beautiful date.

Huffington (R-Santa Barbara) is the enormously wealthy--”I have no financial needs that cannot be met”--son of a Texas oilman who moved to California in 1991 and, in effect, bought himself a congressional seat. The political novice spent $5.4 million of his own money on a 1992 race that trampled fellow Republican Robert J. Lagomarsino, a respected native and nine-term congressman.

Huffington said he believed in term limits.

Then, only a few months into his own first term, the Texas transplant announced he wasn’t satisfied being a mere House member and wanted to run for one of California’s U.S. Senate seats. And anybody who has been watching television--especially the Winter Olympics--has seen him again dipping into his own vast fortune, buying millions of dollars in political advertising.

He is considered by most political pros to be a shoo-in for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November. And if he should upset Feinstein--which until recently seemed inconceivable but now is looking like a long-shot possibility--what next?

Would the ambitious junior senator from the nation’s biggest state lock his sights on the Republican vice presidential nomination in 1996, seeing it as a steppingstone to the Oval Office? Would a newly arrived Texan have the chutzpah to promptly run for the House, then instantly for the Senate?

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I asked Huffington at the Republican state convention last weekend whether he was pledging to serve a full six-year term if elected to the Senate, thereby resisting any temptation to immediately flirt with presidential politics. It was a question most politicians answer with weasel words, trying to avoid a potential trap by saying something like, “It is my full intention to serve . . . . “ Their intentions later can change.

The 46-year Huffington was more candid, if less politic.

“Let’s put it this way,” he responded unhesitantly. “I wouldn’t exclude any options. I would not exclude any options at all. If the people want me to do something else, fine. But I’m running for the Senate with no intent to do anything else after that--just as when I ran for the House, I had no intention of running for the Senate at this stage. But am I glad I’m running for the Senate? You better believe it.”

Those are words that normally would sound an alert among potential party rivals, such as Gov. Pete Wilson. The governor’s own presidential prospects will be revived if he defies the odds and wins reelection.

But Wilson, who has more immediate political concerns, quietly is cheering on Huffington for the same reason most other Republican candidates are: the neophyte’s apparent willingness to spend many millions of his own money and stay out of some contribution troughs where they are feeding. His personal wealth is “in the ballpark” of $50 million to $70 million, he says.

“I say, God bless him. He’s putting in his own money,” observes state Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno.

There also is an expectation that Huffington--although he hasn’t yet committed to it--will give the California GOP a million or so to help finance voter registration and turnout. This will benefit all Republican candidates.

And just making Feinstein run hard will force her to solicit and spend contributors’ money that otherwise would benefit other Democratic candidates, such as the party’s gubernatorial nominee.

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Huffington also should have mainstream voter appeal in a general election: He’s a fiscal conservative who opposes tax increases but a social moderate who supports basic abortion rights and gay rights and voted for the Family Leave Act. He is a co-chairman of the “three strikes” initiative--which he is helping to finance--and favors modest gun controls.

He is intelligent, articulate, energetic, likable, TV handsome--and inspired by a beautiful, brilliant wife: Greek-born Arianna Stassinopolous Huffington, a noted author and TV talk show host.

One crucial but not insurmountable task for Huffington will be to persuade voters that it’s not unfair or undemocratic to be super-rich and finance most of his own campaign. “I’d rather be beholden to the voters and not the special interests,” he says.

He also must convince Californians he knows enough about his new state to understand its problems. “God gave me a brain. I can hear what the problems are,” he insists.

Huffington crashed the party uninvited, but he could become the hit--as long as he pays his own tab.