MCCAIN GRABS SPOTLIGHT AT A SHADOW CONVENTION

PHILADELPHIA -- Arizona Sen. John McCain brought his message of campaign
finance reform yesterday to a different kind of political gathering
yesterday: the Shadow Convention, a collection of party mavericks,
celebrities and progressives trying to prod both parties to focus on
alleviating poverty, halting the war on drugs and reforming campaign finances.

The five-day event, which will be repeated in Los Angeles to parallel the
Democratic National Convention, was organized by columnist Arianna
Huffington, a one-time Newt Gingrich Republican who now calls herself a
"populist in the radical center."

Huffington, the ex-wife of former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael
Huffington, brought in comedians, policy experts and grass-roots organizers
for serious discussions as well as nightly political satire. They are
engaging in a sort of intellectual protest against the Republican and
Democratic national conventions, Huffington said.

"The parties' flimsy and farcical platform process points up the vacuum at
the center of what we call our political debate," she said.

The Shadow Convention features experts on campaign finance, drug policy
alternatives and poverty. In addition to McCain, speakers at this
Philadelphia gathering include comedian Al Franken and Tom Campbell, the
Republican U.S. Senate candidate in California.

The Los Angeles version will feature Franken; actor/director Warren Beatty;
the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and Bill Maher, host of the television show
"Politically Incorrect."

"Huffington's smart enough to understand that you need Hollywood as well as
policy experts to get attention," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior
associate at the Claremont Graduate University.

At the opening proceedings, it was McCain who grabbed the spotlight,
attracting a full house of 800 people to an auditorium at the University of
Pennsylvania, decorated by red, white and blue balloons and a stage
backdrop that included a huge U.S. flag.

Yet McCain sounded as much like a regular Republican as a reformer. He
devoted almost as much of his time to praising Republican presidential
contender George W. Bush as he did to calling for a ways to limit the
influence of money in politics, his signature issue.

"It is quite clear that he is the candidate of change and that the vice
president is the candidate of the status quo," McCain said, saying that
Bush wants to reform public education, military spending and Social Security.

The Arizona senator's kind words for Bush were met with boos that became so
intense he threatened to walk away from his speech at one point. He did
cancel a scheduled question-and-answer session with the audience.