Huffington TV Ad Assails Feinstein on Budget Vote

WASHINGTON —  Just when you thought the 1994 political campaign was over, Mike Huffington is taking to the television airwaves again to blast away at California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the incumbent who beat him in November.

Huffington, who spent $28 million of his own fortune only to lose narrowly to a Democrat in an election season that swept most other Republican candidates to victory, is attacking Feinstein in a television ad for “deceiving” the public by voting against the balanced-budget amendment last week.

“In the real world, deceiving people is called fraud,” Huffington’s voice intones over an old movie clip of a huckster selling vitamins. “Last year Dianne Feinstein strongly supported the balanced-budget amendment. But last week she cast the deciding vote to kill virtually the same amendment.”

Feinstein, of course, sees it quite a different way, saying she voted against the amendment because Republicans refused to promise to protect Social Security funds from being raided in the process.

“Maybe Michael Huffington just doesn’t understand the campaign is over, but no amount of self-financed television commercials is going to stop me from fighting to protect the Social Security Trust Fund,” said the senator, apparently irked by an opponent who it seems will not give up the ghost.

It took Huffington months to concede defeat after the November election, after which he first challenged absentee ballots, then alleged voter fraud before acknowledging that Feinstein had indeed won the race. Because Huffington had given up his seat in the House of Representatives to run for the Senate, he found himself suddenly out of Congress--but not out of Washington.

The Santa Barbara resident has been spending most of his time here, and recently acknowledged that he plans to seek some public office, although he’s not sure which one, perhaps in 1998. Huffington aide Jennifer Grossman mentioned as possibilities the California governorship and the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Barbara Boxer.

Grossman declined to say how much the oil and gas millionaire is spending to air the ad in major California broadcast TV markets this week, on statewide cable television and in Washington.

“He is speaking as a concerned citizen,” she said Tuesday. “The voters voted for Dianne Feinstein, but a Dianne Feinstein who promised to vote for a balanced-budget amendment. He wants to help the people of California get what they voted for.”