Pubdate: Sun, 06 Aug 2000 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Chronicle Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Author: Andrew Gumbel, a correspondent for the Independent in London. ARIANNA, THE GOP SPICE GIRL She won't be marching in the streets. She won't be calling for the overthrow of capitalism and of corporate control of the global economy (although she might be sorely tempted). Nevertheless, if anyone is going to shake the over-rehearsed stiltedness out of this summer's American political conventions and capture the imagination of those for whom the whole circus is supposedly intended -- the voters -- then surely Arianna Huffington is the woman for the job. Peppy, witty, shamelessly contrary and eternally combative, Arianna is the driving force behind the Shadow Conventions that are stalking the mainstream politicians, both in Philadelphia where the Republicans have officially anointed George W. Bush as their presidential candidate, and in Los Angeles where the Democrats are gathering to crown Al Gore. Count on her to keep things lively (the title of her latest book: ``How to Overthrow The Government''). Count on her to keep the celebrity count high (among the speakers she has attracted, Gore Vidal, Warren Beatty and Bush's erstwhile challenger, the populist Republican Sen. John McCain). And, above all, count on her to stir the pot by focusing on issues she believes the two big parties would rather the electorate never got to hear about: the growing disparity between rich and poor and the myths of America's much-touted ``prosperity''; the corruption of the present system of political campaign financing, which enables corporations to subvert the public interest through money; and the moral and political bankruptcy of the so-called War on Drugs, whereby small-time addicts are criminalized and public funds are squandered on prison-building rather than education and rehabilitation. It is hard to know how to define Arianna, as she is universally known (the Huffington comes from a husband she is no longer married to, and her maiden name, Stassinopoulos, is an overripe mouthful). Newspaper columnist, political salon-keeper, television personality - -- none of them really do her justice. What she does have, in spades, is attitude. She has been many things to many people in her long and colorful career: president of the Cambridge Union, trenchant anti-feminist, best-selling biographer of Picasso, and (in her least convincing role) dutiful political wife. She was considered Republican until she made clear she had no respect for any political party, considered a conservative until the Shadow Conventions filled her with a radical zeal reminiscent of the counterculture of the Vietnam War era, considered a shameless elitist until she unexpectedly became an advocate for the poor. If it was her husband Michael who introduced her to politics, it was his spectacular failure to win one of California's Senate seats for the Republican Party in 1994 that gave her the liberating push she needed to take center stage herself. Within two years she was divorced and developing a reputation for her political coziness with Newt Gingrich. Already during the last presidential election season, it was clear Arianna was no blue-rinse conservative: She appeared on a political chat show in her nightie, discussing the hot issues of the day in bed with a pajama-clad left-winger. (The program segment was called ``Strange Bedfellows.'') The New Yorker described her as the Republican Party's very own Spice Girl. When Newt Gingrich began to become an embarrassment to his supporters, she had the courage to drop her allegiance to him and began her astonishing drift -- by now a full-speed surge -- to the left. And as she threatens to upstage the mainstream parties, plenty of politicians are quaking ever so slightly at the thought of her. - --- MAP posted-by: greg