SHADOWING THE CONVENTIONS

Political celebs are planning to descend on L.A. and Philly this summer to
throw their own counter-conventions in an effort to draw attention to the
issues both parties prefer to ignore.

Looking forward to watching the Democratic and Republican National
Conventions this summer? Didn't think so. Some say it will be like watching
a tennis game where both players will be on the same side of the net.

You will have an alternative, however, as long as you have access to the
Internet, or possibly cable television, or can get yourself to Philadelphia
July 30 through Aug. 3 or to Los Angeles Aug. 13 through Aug. 17. There, an
eclectic collection of activists, with help from various celebrities and
maverick politicians, will be running innovative "Shadow Conventions" near
the two parties' traditional confabs.

Featured names include Sen. John McCain, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and actor
Warren Beatty. Also on the bill: regular folks personally affected by some
of the nation's ills, from the growing gap between rich and poor to the
excesses of the war on drugs. A major force behind the Shadows is former
conservative vamp Arianna Huffington, with a hefty assist from billionaire
George Soros' Open Society Institute, which has given $175,000 toward the
projected $500,000 project.

The Shadows will offer "a way of having a voice," says Jim Wallis, convener
of Call to Renewal, a coalition of faith-based organizations and a
co-convener of the Shadows (other co-conveners include Common Cause and the
National Campaign For Jobs and Income Support, among others). "We're having
the town meetings the big conventions ought to be. [Theirs are] more
coronations than conventions."

The Shadow Conventions will focus on three issues: campaign-finance reform,
the war on drugs and the growing gap between rich and poor. A day will be
given to each of these topics at both Shadow Conventions, with a kick-off
rally on the preceding Sunday night, in coordination with "Rock the Vote"
in Los Angeles. Panels of experts will hold sway from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
each "issue day," followed later in the afternoon by organizing workshops
and discussions. In the evenings, Shadowers will watch the, er,
conventional conventions on simulcasts, seasoned with political satire from
the likes of Harry Shearer, Al Franken, and "Politically Incorrect" host
Bill Maher.

Other parodies are planned as well, along with interactive opportunities
like the "bozometer," which will enable online viewers to vote on
Democratic or Republican Convention speakers. Most of the proceedings will
be carried on the Shadow Conventions Web site. C-Span also may pick them up.

In the campaign finance reform arena, Ellen Miller, president of Shadow
co-convener Public Campaign, says she'll be "raising the flag high for the
most systemic reform -- a full public-financing, clean-money system." Such
systems, she points out, have already been enacted in Maine, Arizona,
Vermont, and Massachusetts, and two more states -- Missouri and Oregon --
will have proposals for them on their ballots in this election."

Miller sees action in the states building towards public financing on the
federal level. Polls, she says, indicate that almost two-thirds of
Americans want public financing as long as icandidates agree to spending
limits and take no private money. "We have to break through the
politicians' hold on this issue, and the only way to do that is to take it
to the American public," says Miller.

Lindesmith Center Director Ethan Nadelmann will be setting the tone for the
drug war discussion. Drug abuse can certainly cause enormous damage, and
needs to be reduced, says Nadelmann, but "drug prohibition, like alcohol
Prohibition decades ago, generates extraordinary harms as well. It, not
drugs per se, is responsible for creating vast underground markets,
criminalizing million of otherwise law-abiding citizens, and corrupting
both governments and societies at large."

Nadelmann sees the Shadow Conventions as one way of putting drug policy
reform on the map. He's intent on countering what he sees as the draconian
war-on-drugs "spin" the main parties will undoubtedly provide at their
conventions. Nadelmann will be aided by numerous individuals whose lives
have been damaged by current drug laws. According to Nadelmann's Lindesmith
Center, nearly 500,000 non-violent drug offenders are behind bars in the
US, a number that has increased ten-fold in two decades.

Call to Renewal's Jim Wallis, along with Chuck Collins, co-director of
United for a Fair Economy, will lead the discussion on the widening gap
between rich and poor. "There's something wrong when we have a record
economy and rising inequality at the same time. This rising tide is lifting
all the yachts but not all the boats," says Wallis. "If we don't deal with
this question in a time of prosperity, I'm not sure when we will."

Wallis says the big party candidates are so busy talking about "soccer
moms" they've forgotten about what he calls "Burger King moms." He coined
the term after observing a woman at his local BK: "She was racing back and
forth between the drive-in window and a table in a corner where there were
three kids sitting -- her kids. She was helping them with their homework."

The catalyst behind the Shadow Conventions is the controversial syndicated
columnist Huffington. In recent years, since her days as an acolyte of Newt
Gingrich and wife of Michael Huffington, the former Republican congressman
who broke spending records in his failed attempt to win a US Senate seat in
1994, Huffington has taken a sharp left turn. Exhibit A: "When Al Gore
talks about 'leaving no children behind' at the Democratic Convention,
he'll be doing it in a city [Los Angeles] where one in three children live
in poverty," she intones. "We want acts, not rhetoric. "

Huffington's displeasure with the two-party system is not driving her into
the arms of any third-party candidate. Ralph Nader is expected to address
the Shadow Convention in Philadelphia, and Huffington says she likes him.
But she's opting for "none of the above" when she enters the ballot booth
in November.

The Shadow Conventions do have nay-sayers, of course. One is Democratic
Congressman Barney Frank. He dislikes what he sees as the Shadow
Conventions' "plague on both your [Democratic and Republican] houses." He
thinks there are some significant differences between Al Gore and George
Bush: "abortion, gay rights, gun regulation, affirmative action, and race,"
to name just a few. Frank says the Shadow Conventions do a disservice by
ignoring these clear differences. He believes the dissenters should work
for Gore's election in the short run while pushing to create better choices
in the long run.

Comedian Al Franken, for one, says he will be pointing out those
differences when he reenacts, along with Arianna Huffington, the "Strange
Bedfellows" routine the two did for the cable channel Comedy Central during
the 1996 conventions. "I'm actually going to take the pro-status quo side
... we did it in '96, when I was the liberal and she was the conservative.
Now she's way to my left ... I've stayed exactly where I was." What do you
think?

Cited:

Shadow Conventions
http://www.shadowconventions.com/

Open Society Institute
http://www.soros.org/osi/

Call to Renewal
http://www.calltorenewal.com/

Public Campaign
http://www.publiccampaign.org/

Lindesmith Center
http://www.lindesmith.org/

United for a Fair Economy
http://www.stw.org/