SHADOW CONVENTIONS PLAN DARK HUMOR

Organizers Say Substance, Not Just Satire, Also Will Be Offered Because
Democrats And Republicans Are Too Timid To Face Issues

LOS ANGELES -- It's an unconventional approach to presidential politics,
but that's the idea.

Dismayed that the Republican and Democratic national conventions have
become "coronations," a loose coalition of political activists, religious
leaders, and social satirists has decided to hold its own.

In Philadelphia and again in Los Angeles, the plan is to talk issues during
the day and party into the night, to make Americans think hard about
certain issues and then make them laugh out loud.

The shadow conventions will feature mothers barely making ends meet and
real people with real problems, mixed in with multimedia presentations
intended to inform and amuse.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is slated to speak on the East Coast,
"Politically Incorrect" host Bill Maher on the West. Academy Award winner
and presidential tease Warren Beatty is also expected to put in an appearance.

Celebrities aside, the emphasis will be on what convention planners view as
the government's failed drug policy, the growing gap between rich and poor,
and the need for serious campaign-finance reform, as well as the
possibility of taking the nation public by selling stock in America.

The non-partisan hosts plan to carry the shadow conventions live on the
Internet, enabling anyone with a computer to participate in the discussions
and possibly allowing them to vote, via "bozometer," on the usually
long-winded speeches at the major party conventions.

"We are saying that the other conventions are going to be scripted events
addressing themselves to a shrinking audience, a shrinking voting public, a
shrinking engaged public," said political columnist Arianna Huffington, who
helped galvanize the shadow conventions. "Ours are going to be substantive,
not satire-driven. Celebrities are only going to be included if they have a
real position on our issues. But we're also going to have fun."

Part politics, part performance art, the shadow conventions will run in
August on the same days as the traditional conventions.

But the upstarts hope to get a jump on the nation. Their substantive
sessions will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., before the major parties get
going and, organizers hope, before national ennui sets in.

"Our aim is that in the morning we'll put on some of our headliners and
have some new people speaking out and that in the evening we'll focus much
more on providing entertainment," said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the
Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy institute and another of the conveners.

Between the comedy and concerts, of course, the conveners have some points
to make. Charging that the major parties are too timid or too political
even to address issues of concern to many Americans, organizers promised
that they will not shy from tough discussion. Instead, funded by foundation
grants, the shadow conventions are intended to hark back to the days when
national conventions were about debating issues and setting agendas.

While the major party conventions feature success stories, shadow
convention organizers say theirs will emphasize the people left out of the
economic recovery, among them former welfare mothers now working for
minimum wage and small-business owners struggling to meet their payrolls.

According to high-tech wizard Peter Hirshberg, who conceived the shadow
conventions with Huffington at a California technology conference,
impoverished youngsters and other children will be invited to tell their
stories, as vans carrying the latest in video equipment roll out across the
country.

"The conventions will highlight people who have done well; we'll have the
people who haven't done so well," said Jim Wallis, editor in chief of
Sojourner magazine and head of Call to Renewal, a faith-based coalition
that has made the elimination of poverty a priority.

Another emphasis at the shadow conventions will be the disproportionate
number of blacks and Latinos serving long prison sentences for non-violent
drug offenses, as well as the failure of the nation's drug policy as a whole.

The third focus will be the campaign-finance reform that conveners said
neither Republicans nor Democrats have shown any real interest in bringing
about.

"The conventions today are glorified money drives and showcases for
coronations," said Scott Harshbarger, the former Massachusetts attorney
general who is now president of Common Cause, a national organization that
advocates for campaign-finance reform and is a convener of the Shadow
Conventions.

"It's obvious that they're working very hard not to deal in any way with
issues that are controversial," Harshbarger said. "We'll provide a stark
alternative, not liberal or conservative, left or right, just willing to do
what conventions used to do, and that's to be a forum for debate,
discussion, and also for proposing solutions."

Conveners said they realize that they first have to grab the nation's
attention, in an era when even the major television networks see no reason
for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the conventions and barely half of all
eligible voters bother to cast a ballot in presidential elections.

So after the Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks, after the workshops conducted by
academics, policy-makers, and political activists, after, in a sense, the
medicine goes down, the poetry readings and cultural events will begin.

Anyone can participate and even run for president themselves, complete with
campaign commercials and offers to sell out for big bucks.

The idea for the shadow conventions came about at a breakfast where
Hirshberg had just unveiled an Internet game that pokes fun at the
political process.

Called Ipocracy, and expected to launch shortly before the Republican
National Convention, the game involves a mock public stock offering in the
U.S. government, with the proceeds used to help pay down the national debt.
Candidates have to pick their political affiliation, from Nikita S.
Khrushchev on the far left to Regis Philbin in the middle to Benito
Mussolini on the far right.

"Ipocracy just got us talking about the reform movement that McCain kicked
off," Hirshberg said. The alternatives get under way the night before the
traditional conventions open.