CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Huffington Joined by Bennett at Big O.C. Fund-Raiser

William J. Bennett, the former education secretary who has been an intellectual godfather to Mike Huffington’s U.S. Senate campaign, joined the Republican candidate Tuesday for a fund-raiser and a panel discussion about social values.

Bennett’s best-selling “Book of Virtues” was the subject of Huffington’s first television commercial of the campaign and he is a leading advocate in Washington for ending government welfare, a proposal Huffington has described as the central theme of his campaign.

On Tuesday, before attending a fund-raiser in Orange County that was the largest in the Huffington campaign so far, Bennett and others joined a seminar staged by Huffington that sought to contrast the conservative and liberal visions of poverty and compassion.

They argued that government welfare has fueled the nation’s burgeoning social problems and that community volunteers and private groups must assume more responsibility for the needy.

“Supporters of the welfare state seem to talk like they have a monopoly on compassion,” Bennett said. “Well, they don’t. The measure of real compassion is to make that sacrifice (of time or money). The cynical approach is to write the (government) check.”

The event at the Biltmore Hotel was billed as “an attempt to supplement the sound bites and TV commercials” that have been the primary vehicle for political campaigns, particularly Huffington’s generously self-financed effort to unseat Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

At heart, the panel was more political than academic. Huffington campaign crews filmed the event for a future commercial. The supportive audience of about 30 people was gleaned largely from Republican groups.

During the discussion, Huffington, a freshman congressman from Santa Barbara, shed little light on some of the questions raised by critics, who doubt that private sources are willing to or can afford to support the nation’s indigent. Much of the discussion also focused more on a description of the problems than on how a public-to-private transition might work.

Welfare is “just giving somebody a check and telling them to go home, be quiet and don’t bother us,” Huffington said.

Huffington officials said the panel was the first of three such events--all exploring the welfare theme--they hope to stage during the campaign. They believe the welfare issue is fertile political ground, as evidenced by the attention it has received from other politicians.

Both President Clinton and former Vice President Dan Quayle gave major speeches recently about moral values and related government policy that substantially overlapped the message in Huffington’s campaign. All three men say a lack of individual responsibility, inattention to values and out-of-wedlock births are among the major contributors to America’s social problems.

After the morning seminar, Bennett also helped Huffington by attending a fund-raiser in Orange County. With an audience of more than 400, it was the largest fund-raiser Huffington has held in a political campaign that he has financed almost entirely from his pocket.

Unlike most candidates, particularly Feinstein, Huffington has spared little time in his campaign for private fund-raisers. But he has two other big-name Republican events on the schedule, one Friday with former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp and another next month with Quayle.

The vast majority of Huffington campaign funds are still expected to come from the candidate. But a spokeswoman said Tuesday the fund-raisers are a needed supplement.