Los Angeles Times Interview : Mike Huffington : The Race for the Senate: A GOP Neophyte--and Proud of It

Call Mike Huffington a political paradox. The theme of his campaign has been “more government isn’t the answer.” Yet, he has spent about $20 million of his personal fortune attempting to win a seat in the world’s most elite governmental club, the U.S. Senate. He’s hired as advisers some of the most skillful political insiders in the business--including Lyn Nofzinger, Edward J. Rollins and Kenneth L. Khachigian. Yet, he portrays himself as a non-politician and an outsider. In stump speeches, he says private charities should take over the government’s role in providing for the poor. Yet, since he refuses to release his income-tax records, voters have no way of knowing how charitable he’s been himself.

But paradox or not, first-term GOP Rep. Mike Huffington has succeeded in persuading large numbers of California voters that he’s a better choice for the Senate than incumbent Dianne Feinstein. Huffington, 47, appears to be running neck-and-neck with Feinstein in what--at $27 million and counting--is already the most expensive Senate race in history.

Huffington’s father is of one of the richest men in America. Texas oilman Roy Huffington discovered and mined rich oil reserves in Indonesia. His son, a Harvard Business School graduate, worked in the family business, and, in 1991, after moving to Santa Barbara, spent more than $5 million to defeat veteran GOP Rep. Bob Lagomarsino in the primary and win a seat in Congress. Just eight months after being sworn in, Huffington announced his bid for the Senate.

Once considered a political lightweight by both Republicans and Democrats, Huffington’s steady barrage of political ads has raised negative opinions of his opponent Feinstein and attracted voters who are angry at government and career politicians. He defends his meager record as a congressman--three bills, one resolution and eight minutes speaking on the floor--by saying the last thing the country needs is more legislation. And he bristles at attacks on his wife, Arianna, an author and cable TV talk-show host. Former Huffington staffers claim she is the brains behind the campaign, and her association with a New Age religious sect has been widely reported. While the congressman has been an ardent supporter of immigration control, late last week The Times reported that the Huffingtons had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny.

Some believe it’s telling that where Huffington is best known, he is least liked. He failed to carry his Santa Barbara district in the primary election, and a large group of prominent Santa Barbara Republicans have been raising money for his opponent. Feinstein calls him, “A Texas millionaire that can’t be trusted.” But he’s betting there’s enough disaffection and disgust among California voters to put him over the top, and into the Senate.

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Question: What do you see as the limits on the role of the federal government?

Answer: Government can’t teach kids values. It can’t be in the house, or the workplace, or in everyone’s car to protect people from criminals. My feeling is that the federal government cannot teach our kids to read and write. Most of the social problems we have today--drugs, alcohol abuse, teen-age pregnancy, welfare--if we want to solve those problems, it gets back to the families of those kids spending time with the children while they’re young. Reading with them at night, making sure they do their homework, teaching them virtues like hard work, courage, compassion, responsibility and faith. That part is really up to the family, not to the federal government.

We’re just spending billions and billions of dollars that is going to waste. It’s not helping the taxpayers, and it’s not helping the recipients, either.

Q: Do you feel the federal government has any responsibility for things like education or helping the poor?

A: I would like to see the federal welfare system dismantled, and the funding that has gone into it be split into two parts--for deficit reduction and for block grants to the states. Those grants would allow the states to experiment with different programs to see what works, and have the states be responsible for welfare, with no strings attached from the federal government. Washington, D.C., puts a straitjacket on our 50 states and all of our cities and local communities. And, frankly, the best way you can help an individual is you, yourself, helping somebody in your own family, or a neighbor or someone else--we’re getting away from the volunteer spirit by saying, “Uncle Sam’s gonna solve all your problems, just give us your tax money and we’ll do it for you.” It hasn’t worked. We’ve spent $5 trillion and just haven’t been able to make a dent in poverty.

Q: Let’s talk about immigration. What should the federal government be doing to control the borders?

A: The federal government has done a lousy job at securing our borders and it would be an easy thing to solve if the government would fund the money. It’s very simple: We just need to put more border guards out there, more lights and stop the problem at the border--so one doesn’t have to worry about it after people have crossed the border.

Q: But as you’re no doubt aware, here in California, as well as in your native state of Texas, immigrant workers--for the large part, illegal immigrant workers--make up the great majority of the agricultural work force. If we succeed in closing off the border, who will harvest the crops?

A: The first thing you want to do is give the opportunity to harvest those crops to citizens--or people who are here legally. If, in fact, they’re aren’t enough people to do the job, we need to return to something that was effective before, and that’s called the bracero program, or something similar to it, where people can come across the border to work--you know who they are, they pay their taxes and at the end of their work period, they return to their home country.

Q: But doesn’t history show us that these guest-worker programs contributed to illegal immigration--that the workers did not go home?

A: I’m not old enough to know. But I know that the bracero program was a heck of a lot better than what we have today, where people just come across the border.

Q: Why did you decide to support Proposition 187--which will deny social services to undocumented immigrants--and do you believe it will have a dramatic effect on reducing illegal immigration?

A: I decided to vote for it because illegal immigrants are breaking the law by coming across the border, and the law must be upheld. We also need to send a message to Washington, D.C., that the people of California are fed up with paying $3 billion a year in services to illegal immigrants that are mandated on us by Washington. If it passes, which I think it will, it will send a message to the Clinton Administration that the time has come for the federal government to pick up its responsibility.

Q: But what would you say to someone who said that it’s a cruel society that punishes the children of immigrants by denying them neo-natal care, or education or other vital services?

A: The obligation to provide children with education and so forth is that of the home country. It’s clear that those countries are shirking their duty. But there’s no reason that this country should have an open border to 5 billion people around the world who might want to come here.

Q: Let’s shift gears a bit. Who are your mentors, or your political heroes?

A: The good news is, no politician is necessarily my political hero. Certainly, I don’t have any mentors in politics, because I went into it right out of business.

Q: Are there no figures from history who have inspired you--Jefferson perhaps?

A: Well, there’s one--even though I don’t consider him a politician, although he was in politics for 16 years--and that’s Ronald Reagan.

I didn’t know Jefferson. Do I admire Thomas Jefferson? Certainly, I do. But I did not know him, and what I’ve read in newspapers about my own race--it shows that you can’t believe much about what you read. So I have no idea about what kind of man Jefferson was, but what I think I know about him, I admire tremendously.

Q: hy did you choose to base your political career in California rather than in your native Texas?

A: Well, I didn’t. I chose to move to California because I wanted to be in the film business. And, secondly, I met my wife-to-be in 1985, and she was living in Los Angeles. This is where she wanted to live her life, so we decided to live here. It wasn’t until afterwards that I decided to get involved in public office, and it was because the timing was good--we had seven new, open congressional seats because of redistricting in 1991. So I decided to run. California is my home.

Q: One of the major concerns among undecided voters about your candidacy is your lack of a political record. What do you say to those people?

A: I think it’s a great strength not to be part of the old-boy network of the career politicians, who are responsible for the failure of the American political system. It’s clear that we want people who do not have a political-track record, but a business-track record, or something from another area, so that we can get fresh blood and new ideas into the government. There are always risks. But after the voters of California have me in office for a while, they’ll know whether or not they’ve made a good decision, and I think they will find that I’m very different from these career politicians like Feinstein and (Sen. Barbara) Boxer. So I consider it a great strength not to have a political-track record.

Q: So what do you consider to be your qualifications for this office?

A: I’m a fiscal conservative. I was very tight-fisted as a businessman. We need some people in government who treat taxpayer’s money as if it were their own, and don’t go out and spend it on things that are inefficient and ineffective. So I plan to spend a fair amount of my time on the financial side of government trying to balance the budget, and hopefully, by the time I finish my political career, we’ll have enough votes to do that.

Q: As long as we’re talking about spending--you’ve been accused of trying to buy this Senate seat. How do you explain spending so much of your personal wealth on this campaign?

A: Remember, Mrs. Feinstein has spent $40 million, mostly of other people’s money, and a few million of her own, over the last four years. About $6 or $7 million comes from political-action committees. These people who give her money want something in return. The benefit of spending your own money is that you’re not beholden to the special interests; you’re only beholden to the voters.

If you look at past elections in the state of California, you’ve had people run for office, like (former Democratic Rep.) Mel Levine, who outspent his opponent, Barbara Boxer, by 2-to-1, and he came in third. My point is, you can only win if you have a good message--but you have to get that message out to the voters.

Q: So why are you willing to spend a large amount of your considerable fortune, and put yourself and your family on the line to win this election? Why does Mike Huffington want to be a senator?

A: I have some young children, and this country is not the country that I grew up with. We have major problems with drugs, crime, poor schools, a lack of values. There’s a bleak future for many of our youth. I figure that if someone has been successful in life, if that person is not willing to give something back to the country, who’s going to?

In the final analysis, we are all here to help others. And whether we do it through being doctors or teachers or through another avenue, it’s a blessing to be alive, and I want to be able to help other people. This is the way I think I can help them the best. Not by staying in business, not by retiring and living the good life. But by being an active participant in the political process. To return the power that has gone to the federal government back to the people in the local communities.

I see this as a turning-point election. There will be a sea-change if people like myself and (Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate) Mitt Romney get elected to the United States Senate. We’re a new breed of politicians, because we are citizen-politicians. We don’t want to stay there forever, but to go there to change things, and then return home to the state from where we were elected.