Defying Conventions

For those who’d like a little straight talk from the speakers at a national political convention, good luck.

It’s been ages since anybody shot from the hip at one of these things. There hasn’t been a truly stirring speech from a party nominee since George McGovern did his impassioned “from the mountain to the prairie” riff in 1972, and look what happened to him. He got 17 electoral votes to Richard Nixon’s 520.

You could spend endless days and endless nights at one of these entertainment-impaired parties, waiting for a single speaker to light your fire. You could sit through something as somniferous as Gov. Bill Clinton’s 1988 address prior to Michael Dukakis’ nomination, which droned on like an Ingmar Bergman double feature.

The saving grace of the ‘90s came when Elizabeth Dole decided to work the house with a hand-held microphone, transforming before our very eyes from a respectable candidate’s spouse into Leeza Gibbons. It was candid and unexpected, a couple of unconventional qualities at conventions.

Perhaps that’s why we’re beginning to hear more and more about these “shadow conventions” that will run concurrently with the genuine articles coming up in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. We’re starving for a little pizazz.

We all know the chosen candidates won’t go within a 10-foot pole or a 10-point poll of America’s most unpleasant subjects, so the alternative shadow conventions will endeavor to pick up the slack.

John McCain can be blunt about campaign finance reform and Jack Kemp candid about poverty in ways unwelcome at the actual Republican convention. Gary Johnson, the GOP governor of New Mexico, can clarify his views on the legalization of drugs without making George W. Bush’s people turn purple.

Jesse Jackson can wrestle with racial issues at L.A.’s shadow convention with no holds barred. Warren Beatty will say what’s on his mind and Arianna Huffington what’s on hers, while Bill Maher and Harry Shearer vie for the right to be the modern-day Mort Sahl.

Each has serious issues to discuss, but if a little humor seeps in like sugar to make the medicine go down, fine. The whole concept is to get a point across, not put the audience to sleep.

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Kenneth Kahn is a lawyer-comedian, a hyphenate you don’t see every day. He carries a business card that reads: “Kenny Kahn. World’s Funniest Attorney.”

He did his stand-up act Thursday night at a Pasadena club called the Ice House.

“You know,” one of his favorite gags goes, “99% of lawyers give the rest of us a bad name.”

Kahn is also a member of the Los Angeles Shadow Convention’s steering committee. As with those whose idea it was to convene this counter-convention in the first place, Kahn was attracted by the promise of an event where citizens could finally hear a little frank talk on topics that most mealy-mouthed politicians duck.

A criminal defense lawyer in the L.A. area for 30 years, Kahn is, like a lot of Americans, fed up with candidates accepting indecent amounts of money from special-interest groups to finance their campaigns. Sick of politicians who promise to aid America’s impoverished and then funnel billions elsewhere. Tired of undue punishment for drug possession that is often little more than thinly disguised persecution of minorities.

“The drug war is over. Drugs won,” Kahn jokes in his act, but as with a lot of cutting-edge humor, he isn’t entirely kidding.

Kahn was a radio program’s guest when he first heard about the conventions Huffington and others were organizing. The idea appealed to him immediately. Pundits and actors might be a part of it, but at least they’d be upfront about it.

“The Democratic and Republican conventions are fully staged, Hollywood-type productions,” Kahn believes, “and the public is sucked in by this. It’s nothing but bad programming.”

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Sometimes preliminaries turn out to be better than the main event. With daily sessions in Philadelphia next week and beginning Aug. 13 at the Patriotic Hall in downtown Los Angeles, the shadow conventioneers will address such subjects as why the world’s wealthiest nation can’t aid its underprivileged, then dare the elephants and donkeys to follow that.

“We ought to turn the Statue of Liberty around 180 degrees, so it faces America,” Kahn proposes. “It’s about time we face our own poor.”

As for special-interest groups that donate millions to buy a candidate like a commodity, “any public servant who accepts a monetary gift ought to be formally charged with taking a bribe,” Kahn says, talking as citizen, not comedian.

You won’t be hearing much talk like that out of certain convention halls over the next few weeks. Snoring, yes, but probably not much else.

Then again, maybe the speechmakers and stand-up acts of the shadow conventions will do what’s needed most--get the two stars of the other conventions to wake up.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com