Now that Jesse Ventura has left the Reform Party -- taking with him that sorry group's entire claim to electoral legitimacy -- 2000 has officially qualified as the year of anything-can-happen politics.

Up is down, war is peace, George W. Bush gets philosophy lessons from Jesus, Al Gore is a sex symbol and John McCain is a reformer.

Next they'll be telling us that Arianna Huffington is a radical.

Er, hold it, that last assertion may actually be accurate.

Huffington came to national fame in the early 1990s, when her very rich husband bought himself a House seat from California and almost paid his way into the U.S. Senate. Mr. Huffington appeared to be more affable than intellectual -- a Republican in what might politely be referred to as "the Reagan mold'' -- and it soon became clear that Arianna Huffington was the brains behind the operation.

When her husband's campaign crashed and burned -- along with their marriage -- Arianna Huffington parlayed her newfound fame into a gig as a "conservative commentator.'' With regular television appearances and a nationally syndicated column, she quickly became one of the most identifiable pundits of what will come to be known as the Clinton-Gingrich era.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Washington cocktail circuit. Arianna Huffington turned left.

Not all the way left. She still misses the point on a number of issues. But she misses it far less frequently than do Gore and Bill Bradley -- particularly on militarism, trade policy and the wealth gap. And that, dear readers, is significant progress for a woman who once was the darling of the right.

While she is still sometimes mistaken as a "conservative'' -- mainly by those members of the "intelligentsia'' who don't actually read -- Huffington has emerged in the last several years as an increasingly radical critic of U.S. military adventurism abroad, the widening divide between rich and poor at home, poll-defined "pragmatism,'' indistinguishable two-party politics, and the purchase of the public policies by corporate special interests.

Huffington is appropriately furious over the collapse of real democracy in America, and she responds with a genuine passion for change. Eschewing the modest reforms proposed by Republicans and Democrats alike, she tells people: "It's your government ... take it back.''

Huffington's Web site -- www.overthrowthegov.com -- offers this advice to citizens who are fed up with politics as usual and want to do something more than simply cast a protest vote for McCain or Bradley: "Demonstrate at political rallies. Engage in acts of civil disobedience: protest marches, sits-ins. They're still happening and they still work. (Just ask the World Trade Organization.)''

Better yet, her new book, "How to Overthrow the Government'' (ReganBooks), delivers chapter and verse on the subject of shaking up the status quo.

"It's time to stop patting ourselves on our prosperous backs, and start finding new ways to help the people left out in the cold,'' argues Huffington, in language that has been cheered by newfound allies such as Teaxs populist Jim Hightower and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

"It's time to realize that our government is no longer merely `influenced' by corporate contributions -- for all practical purposes its every move is predetermined by them. It's time to recognize that politicians have become more responsive to their poll-wielding consultants than to the true needs of the country. And it's well past time to acknowledge that the two-party system is bankrupt, that the very process by which we elect our leaders has been seriously compromised by the influx of special interest money.''

Huffington sees little hope for salvation on the Republican or Democratic party lines. Noting that the majority of Americans no longer participate in elections, she does not point the finger of blame at citizens.

Rather, she asks, "How can you get excited when all you're offered is a choice between two versions of the same outdated agenda?''

That frustration with two-party politics leads Huffington to promote a wide-ranging response that has as much to do with the street as the polling place. She wants citizens to force their way back into the decision-making process -- by forming new parties; by running for office as independents; by marching, protesting and committing acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.

"If we want our democracy to survive -- if we are to honor the ideals of the leaders who founded it -- we must have the courage to challenge the status quo as they themselves did,'' writes Huffington. "That's the first step if the American people are to take back their country -- and overthrow the governmental system that has gone rotten at the core, replacing it with a reinvigorated democracy that serves all the people, all the time.''

Bury the "conservative commentator'' tag. Arianna Huffington has left the right-wing cocktail circuit and joined the rabble in the streets.

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© 2000 The Capital Times