Bookmark: MAP's link to shadow convention items:
http://www.mapinc.org/shadow.htm

Note: Shadow Convention websites:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/
http://www.shadowconventions.com/

THE SHADOW KNOWS

It's tough to be alternative these days. In a world where marketing is
king, grass-roots movements don't stay rooted very long. Ideas that
are found to be popular are quickly taken, repackaged, and sold to the
public at large.

In the space of the last 10 years, alternative music went mainstream
with the arrival of Nirvana and the Seattle sound, while independent
film became a mini-industry with the Sundance Film Festival. But those
changes were nothing compared with what's going on here across town
from most of the cameras.

A short subway ride away from the GOP's Kumbaya 2000, over at the
University of Pennsylvania, we may be witnessing the mainstreaming of
alternative politics. There, in a room roughly the size of a high
school auditorium, the first of two planned "shadow conventions" has
been unfolding. It is something to behold.

The convention, filled with a racially mixed group made up of mostly
of T-shirt-clad 20-somethings, has been holding meetings here since
Monday. And each day they've been focusing on different topics -
campaign-finance reform, the failings of the war on drugs, poverty -
that both the Democratic and Republican conventions are likely to avoid.

The event is a peculiar mix of Comedy Central and C-SPAN, ironic humor
and stupefying earnestness. In place of the signs that usually denote
where each state is sitting on the convention floor, the shadow
convention auditorium is filled with randomly placed signs that say
things like "Disregarded" or "Not a CEO." Tuesday morning the group
promised it would soon launch a Web site that would let people
experience what it's like to run for president, or as they put it,
"experience the rapture of selling out."

Tuesday night a group of comedians and journalists watched a live feed
from the GOP convention and cracked one-liners.

Add in the fact that the shadow conventions are being led by Arianna
Huffington, the former GOP operative and Zsa Zsa sound-alike whose
hair is only slightly smaller than her ego, and the meeting would seem
to be well on its way to irrelevance.

Arianna, discredited in serious politics, doesn't score well as a
stand-up comic either. That accent just doesn't do much for your
standard Dennis Hastert joke.

But along with the humor, the group has serious day-long discussions
on issues with some prominent speakers, including New Mexico's
Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, Jesse Jackson, political
pundit-professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and John McCain. Also
speaking: writers from such mainstream publications as Time, USA
Today, Newsweek, and the Internet magazine Slate.

It's a mix you'd think is doomed to fail, but somehow it succeeds
despite itself perhaps simply out of novelty. I defy anyone to find
another convention that would feature Gary Johnson, Jesse Jackson, and
comedian Al Franken (in the character of alter-ego Stuart Smalley) as
speakers - all in the same morning.

But there is something else going on here. After sitting in on a few
meetings, it becomes clear that for the shadow speakers, "post
partisan" means politicians will agree on some issues they feel
strongly about, regardless of party - a la Johnson and Jackson on the
drug war.

This stands in marked contrast to Philadelphia's main event, where
"post partisan" means cloaking your ideas in such vagaries that
viewers can't tell if you are a Republican or a Democrat. Even the
GOP's convention theme - Renewing America's Purpose. Together - seems
like a collection of focus-grouped words and punctuation intended to
confuse the viewer.

Watching the shadow convention, you can't help but wonder: Has the
misguided, camera-chasing Arianna inadvertently stumbled across
something of value? With the voters' distaste for partisan rancor,
could this be the future of American politics?

More important, do we want it to be? When alternative movements go
mainstream, something is almost invariably lost. Things are toned
down, controlled.

Time will answer those questions, but in the meantime there is one
thing for certain: The shadow convention has two big advantages over
the GOP's party here. It is at least interesting - and fun.