Huffington

The five leading candidates for governor of California met last night for what is likely to be their only joint debate, one that was marked by angry exchanges and sharp disagreements on new taxes, how to solve the state's budget nightmare and even whether California's economy is in crisis. Some of the most contentious moments of the forum at California State University, Sacramento involved author Arianna Huffington and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has said that last night's forum would serve as his only debate.

Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievement Awards are featured in the January 1995 issue.Here are some of the award "winners" for 1994 and the reasons they earned the "honor":* California's Gov. Pete Wilson. Nine bills that Mr. Wilson had intended to veto were left on a copy machine outside his office and became law.* California Senate candidate Michael Huffington. After hugging a staff member who objected to his embrace, Mr. Huffington said, "I like to hug people. I'm a hugger. But I don't hug everybody.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - There were five gubernatorial candidates in that free-wheeling debate here the other night in California's recall election, but the one who was most on trial was the most famous of them - movie actor Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger, running as a Republican. He didn't terminate anyone. As an entertainer, he more than held his own, with snappy retorts and a physical presence that was to be expected from a polished performer of the silver screen. But as a player on the political stage, his boilerplate answers gave voters little with which to assess his talents for running the nation's largest state.

His voice in high dudgeon and pitch,Newt belabors his Household to ditchAll things bureaucraticThat smell Democratic --The Republican forty-year itch.* * *To Asia the First Lady wentWith humanitarian intentBut she didn't careJust because it was thereAs on Hillary's famous ascent.* * *He agreed assault arms should be deadBut now wants them unbanned instead;Put 'em back on the street,Urges Bob Dole, completeWith that NRA gun to his head.* * *What worries the wannabes mostAs they cast wary eyes at the CoastIs that their sneaky PeteMight stage a repeatIn the role of another guv's ghost.

WASHINGTON -- Here's an inviting and cautionary note from an old-media geezer to the new-school bloggers, Webheads and YouTubers: Welcome. You're a valuable addition to the presidential landscape. Just don't get too full of yourselves. I am moved to inject this little dose of realism into all of the hoopla that has followed the unmasking of the man who created and placed the hilarious "Big Sister" ad that lampoons Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on YouTube. Drawing more than 2 million hits in its first days, the spoof re-edits Apple's classic "Big Brother" Super Bowl TV ad to portray the New York Democrat as an Orwellian talking-head image on a huge screen that is shattered by a feisty young woman with an iPod in her ears.

LOS ANGELES -- He's back. He's busy. And he wants redemption.Lesser operatives might have crumbled after such a spectacular collision with ignominy. They might have shriveled up and died, metaphorically anyway, to find themselves consigned to the status of a David Letterman joke. Saddled with labels like "liar" and "racist" -- his own dark vision of how his post-New Jersey obituary might read -- others might have limped off to the Sahara of corporate communications, the political junkie's notion of hell itself.

Here are a few factoids gleaned from all the celebrity "blogging" going on during Day One of the Huffington Post, writer/politician/media maven Arianna Huffington's new online enterprise: A quote from the mystic (some might say sappy) Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran was scrawled on Hunter S. Thompson's kitchen wall, according to actor John Cusack, who attended a memorial service for the recently deceased gonzo journalist. American Idol has an unlikely fan -- the dyspeptic TV personality Larry David, according to his wife, Laurie.

In more than 30 years as a writer, social commentator and political gadfly, Arianna Huffington has set her steely, hazel-eyed gaze on everyone from Pablo Picasso to Dick Cheney. Few have emerged unscathed. "Chutzpah doesn't even begin to describe the vice president of the United States suggesting that the outcome of the Connecticut primary might embolden `al Qaeda types,'" she wrote recently on her Web site, HuffingtonPost.com, about Sen. Joseph Lieberman's loss to an anti-war challenger.

Whatever the ultimate impact of AOL's $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post on the new-media landscape, it's already clear that the merger will push more journalists more deeply into the tragically expanding low-wage sector of our increasingly brutal economy. That's a development that will hurt not only the people who gather and edit the news but also readers and viewers. To understand why, it's helpful to step back from the wide-eyed coverage focused on foundering AOL's last-ditch effort to stave off the oblivion of irrelevance, or Arianna Huffington's astonishing commercial achievement in taking her Web news portal from startup to commercial success in less than six years.

LOS ANGELES - Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Mr. Universe who became a millionaire superstar in Hollywood action movies, announced yesterday that he would run for governor of California, setting the stage for a tumultuous two-month campaign to unseat Democratic incumbent Gray Davis. The Republican actor, best known for playing a killer robot in three Terminator movies, opened his campaign with a raw display of the extraordinary national media platform at his disposal, announcing his candidacy on NBC's Tonight Show With Jay Leno.