Arianna Huffington makes waves on the Web

In California, broadcaster Willow Bay is a senior editor.

“It’s an Internet business, and you are in some ways leaping off a cliff into the great unknown,” said Bay. "However, if I am going to leap off a cliff with anyone, it's Arianna."

Her supporters aren't just friends but venture capitalists. Though some, like Softbank Capital managing partner Eric Hippeau, did have reservations.

“It's easy to understand why people could be skeptical,” he said. ”You know, a bunch of her friends, celebrities in Hollywood, going and trying to understand the Internet and being bloggers — it sounds like a strange idea."

Still, Hippeau's firm, Softbank Capital, ponied up almost $7 million to help her Web site get started.

“The way the Huffington Post is put together is the right way to go for the future,” he said. “We fully expect to build a very, very major property.”

Though it hasn't turned a profit, yet, Huffington said it will "sometime soon."

She won’t reveal her own compensation.

“I mean, it will be great if it was really profitable and we also made money, but that is definitely not the primary goal,” she said. “The primary goal is to make a difference in the conversation in this country."

A peerless promoter, Huffington made a 1996 appearance on the Comedy Channel in which she climbed into bed and sparred with comedian Al Franken.

Franken: "You get the first question."
Huffington: "But you wrote it."
Franken: "Go ahead."
Huffington: "Why is Bob Dole so far behind?"

Seven years later — by now a liberal — she mounted a short-lived campaign to be governor of California. In a debate with the current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, she complained that about the way he treated women.

"I have a perfect part for you,” he replied. “In Terminator Four."

Once dubbed “the Madonna of political reinvention," Huffington says she spurned conservatism 12 years ago when she realized she'd been naive.

“I really believed the private sector would step up to the plate and be able to address a lot of the social problems we're facing, and then I saw first-hand that this wasn't happening,” she said. “It was really a change based on fact and new evidence. And I'm a great believer in changing your mind when you're presented with new evidence."

Of course, after her tire-screeching, 180-degree flip-flops, former soldiers-in-arms piled on, calling her everything from an “attention-seeking Diva," to the “most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus."

As for criticism, anyone who uses three, count 'em, three, Blackberries is probably too busy to notice. And failure is simply not an obstacle, says the author whose second book was rejected by 36 publishers and who then proceeded to write — and publish — 10 more.

“What stops us so often from fulfilling our dreams, from doing something that can make a difference, is fear of failure,” she said. “And I say, if you don't try, you're definitely going to fail. I feel very strongly that failure is just part of any successful life."

It hasn't, she concedes, always been easy. Despite the best-sellers, the acclaim and her Internet powerhouse, Huffington still wrestles with personal demons. That includes what she calls a very loud, "obnoxious roommate that lives in my head."

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