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Arianna Huffington, candidate’s wife

Arianna Huffington, a picture of grace in a gold Gucci suit, sits in a West Hollywood dining room talking about power and eating a $26 cut of filet mignon. She likes her steak well done, or as she puts it to the waiter, “burned to a char.”

“We tend to think of the most powerful people in the world are politicians, and that’s just patently untrue,” she says. “The power of persuasion is much more important than political power.”

Huffington is certainly in a position to persuade. The author of six books and the host of a weekly cable talk show, she has emerged as a guru of right-wing soul searchers. She’s also the wife of billionaire U.S. Senate candidate Michael Huffington.

He’s the political force; she’s the spiritual one. Together, they’re hoping to reform America at what they see as a turning point in history. Positioning himself as a Perot-like maverick with aspirations to change the whole of society, Michael Huffington may spend as much as $15 million of his oil and gas fortune on his campaign against Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

His platform is based on many New Right ideas expressed by Arianna – most significantly, that the federal government’s attempts at social welfare only end up hurting the needy.

He emphasizes the economic angle, repeating that $5 trillion has been spent on social welfare with not much change in poverty. She pushes the spiritual side, suggesting that social programs rob individuals of the soul-enriching benefits of volunteerism.

Born in Greece and educated at Cambridge, Arianna is indeed exotic. Her resume includes serving as president of the Cambridge Union Debating Society and as a minister for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA, pronounced “messiah”).

She hardly matches the traditional picture of a conservative candidates wife; she’s more likely to dominate the lectern at campaign stops than to sit idly by with hands clasped and head arched adoringly. Indeed, Arianna’s unusual background worries some GOP party officials. One observer was quoted recently in the Washington Post saying, “I think of her as that thing inside John Hurt in the movie Alien, but with better hair.”

Those fears aren’t shared by Michael Huffington’s media consultant Sean McCarthy, who calls her a “consummate and brilliant campaigner.” And he’s not afraid to use her; so far, Arianna has appeared at more candidates’ forums than her husband.

“I love it,” she says of the constant campaigning. “There’s an excitement at being here during a turning point and being part of changing how people think.”

Today Huffington is at the Bel Age Hotel for a lecture on “The Fourth Instinct,” her new book that Newsweek has named “a manifesto calling for nothing less than the spiritual transformation of American life.”

The particulars of that transformation, as described in her three-hour workshop, are unusual only in their combination. She embodies a new cluster of cultural reference points: out-of-body experiences and term limits, “telepathic communication” and the dismantling of the welfare state, prayer in schools and the teachings of self-improvement seminar guru John-Roger.

She arrives at the hotel dressed in what she calls “my campaigning wife outfit” – later, she’s change into a remarkably similar dress she calls “my workshop clothes.” She’s straight off a plane from Sacramento, where she joined her husband briefly for a speech. The night before she gave a lecture in San Francisco; tomorrow morning she heads out to the Central Valley for a campaign tour with her husband and two daughters.

The tight schedule has done nothing to ruffle her smooth surface, though she makes sure of that before sitting down to dinner by dabbing on a fresh layer of Light Olive foundation. Much has been written about Huffington’s hair, and it’s no wonder: firmly set in blondish waves, it adds a good three inches to her already imposing height.

The costs of entering the political ring, she acknowledges, include such “ridiculous” chatter about cosmetics, along with standard-issue gossip from opponents eager to find embarrassing details from her past. Staffers at the Feinstein office have characterized her as a flaky New Age disciple out of touch with the GOP mainstream. But such criticisms, she says, don’t faze her much, for the same reason she finds this campaign so exciting. “There’s an acceleration in our culture,” she says. “I recognize that what we’re doing is a real departure from the status quo. I’ve read enough history to know that these changes meet a lot of resistance.”

She insists that her emphasis on spirituality transcends politics. “This is not a Democrat/Republican argument,” she says. “Whatever our politics, we need to bring these values into the political debate. We’ve been asked for too long to check our religious values at the door and treat our religion as a hobby we pursue on Sundays.”

Ask her what specific values the government should embrace and Huffington sounds more like a family values Republican than a Brentwood seminar groupie. She advocates “silent, non-denominational prayer in school,” along with efforts to encourage two-parent families and abstinence among young people.

Though her connection to the MSIA self-improvement group is well-documented, she says the New Age label doesn’t stick. Her most serious religious bond is to the Greek Orthodox Church. Likewise, she says she’s more inspired by the Sermon on the Mount than calls to free the inner child within.

“Any time people hear mention of spirituality or God, they think New Age,” she says. “But I part company with the New Agers… I believe it’s not enough to have a narcissistic attitude to the spirit. Spiritual growth has become just another thing to get – you get a good job, then you get a good relationship, then you get good sex and spirituality becomes just another thing to get.”

Arianna’s five previous books have attracted the attention of social critics and art scholars, but “The Fourth Instinct” has created a new audience of socialite spiritualists. At the center of the book is the proposition that selflessness is the highest plane of existence, after survival, sex and power. Finding happiness is dependent upon maintaining “this personal paradise, this kingdom of God within.”

The audience here for her presentation assembles in a conference room with pink-papered walls and plastic chandeliers. There’s a lot of pastel in the audience, a lot of gold. Tinkly synthesizer music is played during breaks. Joan Aronson, an attorney from Santa Monica in a Mossimo pantsuit and black high heels, says the political side of Huffington made her more appealing than others who teach about self-improvement.

“I was intrigued by how well rounded she is,” she says. “Later on, she’ll ask Huffington for advice about her boyfriend. Perpetually comforting, Huffington’s responses are reassuring and simple. Don’t worry about your appearance and choose your friends well. Forgive your enemies and give to charity. Be kind and don’t forget to pray.

It’s a soft focus version of traditional values, transplanted from rows of pews to the hotel conference room set. “I make no claims that these are my ideas,” says Huffington. “I claim no propriety. But now Michael’s campaign is shining a spotlight on these issues… Michael is running for office, but I’m doing something just as important – I’m influencing the culture.”