After bowing out of the California recall race, Arianna
Huffington will meet with UCLA students today to discuss the Oct. 7
recall election, Proposition 54 and state campaign finance
reform.
Huffington, who was the only woman among the five leading
candidates and who had a raucous series of exchanges with
Republican front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger during the Sept. 24
debate, initially cancelled her appointment at UCLA to appear on a
nationally televised show in New York, said Regina Sadono, a
volunteer with the Huffington campaign on campus.
Sadono, who is also the director of planning and advancement at
the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities,
said Huffington’s campaign had analyzed the impact of its
candidate’s continued participation in the recall race before
Huffington decided to drop out.
“We were really questioning what (Huffington) could
accomplish considering Arnold’s momentum,” she
said.
Although disappointed about Huffington’s decision to drop
out, Sadono expressed confidence about her group’s future
actions against the recall.
“We’re relieved that now we can solely concentrate
on defeating the recall,” she said.
Dave Fratello, campaign manager for the newly named Arianna
Against the Recall campaign, formerly Arianna Huffington for
Governor, said the campaign concluded that appearing on the
nationally televised morning show “The View” would not
be as beneficial as meeting with students and voters
personally.
“”˜The View’ has a big audience, but
nine-tenths of it is out of California,” he said.
Initially, when Huffington cancelled her appearance, some
students were disheartened by the news.
Anibal Valdez, a fourth-year history student, expressed
frustration when he heard Huffington might cancel, saying that she
should express her views on Proposition 54, an initiative
Huffington has opposed.
“If she said she would come, she should have used her pull
to campaign against Proposition 54,” he said after attending
the Oct. 1 rally against Proposition 54.
However, Valdez also said mainstream media coverage of the
candidates somewhat marginalized her.
“I don’t think she’s gotten her fair share of
the media’s attention. It’s been mostly about
Schwarzenegger,” he said.
A nationally syndicated columnist and ardent opponent of the
University of California fee hikes, Huffington was one of Gov. Gray
Davis’ harshest critics on the campaign trail.
However, she said she was bowing out and urged her supporters to
vote against the effort to remove the Democratic governor because
it’s “the only way now to defeat Arnold
Schwarzenegger.”
With reports from Daily Bruin wire services. The forum is
scheduled to take place in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom at 12 p.m.
today.