CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Huffington Ad Calls for End to Welfare : Candidate says huge increase in volunteerism could replace government programs for the poor. Feinstein calls proposal unrealistic.

Republican Senate candidate Mike Huffington outlined what he said was the central theme of his campaign in a new statewide television commercial that calls for replacing government welfare with a huge increase in community volunteers.

Rep. Huffington (R-Santa Barbara) calls his plan “far more radical” than President George Bush’s vision of a thousand points of light, and in the ad, he points to an audience of Republican supporters as the people who must solve the problems of poverty by spending more of their time and money to help the poor.

The candidate said he supports legislation to increase tax deductions for charitable giving. As a result, he says to the audience in the commercial: “It will mean you will have to stand up and take some of that money that you used to pay in federal taxes and give it to your church, give it to your charities, give it to the homeless shelters.

“We can turn the country around,” he continues. “We can get rid of the welfare state.”

Huffington’s commercial hits the airwaves in California just as the Senate race emerges from a bruising seven-week exchange of attack television commercials between the Republican and his opponent, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In recent polls, the race continues to be close and, for Huffington, they indicate that he has spent so much of his campaign effort criticizing Feinstein that most California voters do not know much about him. The new commercial seeks to remedy that by providing Huffington’s vision of government reform.

At 60 seconds, the ad is twice as long as most political commercials. Huffington, who is financing his campaign from a personal fortune, is estimated to have paid about $2 million to air the new ad statewide for about three weeks.

Meanwhile this week, both candidates continued to posture for the fall campaign by exchanging a series of debate challenges.

Feinstein suggested in a letter to Huffington on Wednesday that the candidates hold three debates in the final six weeks of the race with at least two broadcast on television and one on radio. She listed media organizations in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego as possible hosts and she called on Huffington to designate a staff member to begin negotiations about the showdowns.

Huffington scoffed at negotiations, saying instead that Feinstein can talk to him directly if she wants to debate. He added that he was ready for the faceoff anytime and, provided an adequate audience, almost anywhere--including, if she wanted, Thursday evening on the Capitol lawn.

“You tell her, if she wants, I’ll be there,” he said.

Responded Feinstein: “There is a time for all things under the sun. There will be debates. Right now, we both have a very big responsibility. It’s health care reform.”

Feinstein and her campaign staff said Huffington’s proposal for ending welfare was unrealistic and, they charged, it shows that his enormous personal wealth has left him out of touch with the needs of the poor.

“I think it’s easy for a person like Congressman Huffington, who can buy anything he wants any time, to talk about charity,” said Feinstein, who is also one of the Senate’s wealthiest members.

“I would hazard a guess that I have spent far more time on skid rows and in soup kitchens than Congressman Huffington has,” she said. “Some of it can be funded with charitable contributions, but a lot of it cannot be because the money is not forthcoming. I think it is wishful thinking and an obfuscation of fact.”

Huffington said he has given substantial financial contributions to charity, but he acknowledges that he does not have a long background as a volunteer. He and his wife, Arianna, started helping at shelters last New Year’s Day. Since then, he has encouraged his campaign staff to spend time at shelters near his Orange County headquarters. The candidate and his wife have also stopped at sites throughout the state while on the campaign trail.

Huffington has told reporters since last spring that volunteerism would be a theme in his campaign, but he has not focused on the idea until the commercial. It is a message that substantially overlaps the major theme of his wife’s latest book, “The Fourth Instinct.”

The book, Arianna Huffington’s seventh, which was released in May, describes a spiritual revival under way in America that is essential to solve burgeoning social problems such as crime, poverty and inadequate education.

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The Republican nominee said in an interview Thursday that he agrees with his wife’s conclusions in the book. He said he believes the nation is undergoing a historic transition that should include a heightened spiritual awareness and, as a result, a substantial increase in the amount of charitable giving.

Government’s role, he said, is to reduce the need for welfare by improving the economy and creating jobs. “More than anything, real change will begin with a change in thinking--not just better or smarter thinking, but rather a shift in who we think of as the problem solvers of society,” Huffington said in a statement. “Instead of reflexively relying on the federal government to solve our problems, I believe we must strengthen and encourage civic institutions--neighborhood associations, volunteer organizations, church and synagogue groups--to reweave the fabric of community.

“What I am proposing is a far cry from President Bush’s calls for a ‘thousand points of light,’ ” he added. “I’m calling for something far more radical: the replacement of the welfare state with a renewed and revitalized civil society.”

Huffington’s ad profiles a volunteer at the Fred Jordan Mission in Downtown Los Angeles, Willie Jordan. Betty Reagan, an administrator at the mission, said Willie Jordan and the mission did not endorse Huffington as a candidate, but they were thankful for anyone seeking to help the poor. She said Huffington and his wife have volunteered at the mission.

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Critics of Huffington’s plan say it is wishful thinking to believe that charitable contributions can accommodate the nation’s poor.

Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Los Angeles Coalition to End Homelessness, called the plan “simplistic” and worrisome because if government support is cut he believes the poor will suffer more.

“I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and under the Reagan Administration they said the same thing,” he said. “Let’s prove that capitalism works; let’s prove that the private sector can pick it up. What’s happened over the last 10 years is that homelessness has increased about 15% each year.”

But Huffington got support from some Republican political consultants who said he could strike a chord in the public with a fresh-sounding message.

GOP strategist Sal Russo in Sacramento said “Californians are generous and considerate and caring people” who should respond to Huffington’s call. Ron Smith, an adviser in Los Angeles, said people may be open to such unusual solutions because the old ways have not worked.

“The bottom line is that Feinstein is going to say: ‘I’m bringing home the bacon. This is for you. Vote for me,’ ” he added. “Huffington is going to say that I’m going to solve the problems through volunteerism and the alternative is more government, more spending and more taxes.”