Calculated shambles from the US Democrats

By MARY DEJEVSKY

LOS ANGELES - Hugs in front of cameras are problematic in politics, as a certain Monica Lewinsky showed. But that did not prevent Al Gore striding out on to the podium to sweep his daughter into his arms after her big speech on Thursday.

It was Gone with the Wind meets family values, a supremely scripted surprise that tugged at the heartstrings and took already fired-up Democratic delegates by storm.

In its calculated spontaneity, Gore's 'Hollywood moment' was typical of the past week's show at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, where the Democratic Party used the Republicans' slick management of their Philadelphia convention as a stick to beat them with.

"Let's be honest," said vice-presidential candidate, Joseph Lieberman. "We may be near Hollywood, but not since Tom Hanks won an Oscar has there been that much acting in Philadelphia."

Night after night, speaker after speaker, the Democrats mocked the discipline that had kept the Republicans "on message" for four nights.

They scorned the Republicans' "Minstrel Show" of ethnic diversity that put many times more black and brown faces on the stage than there were in the hall. "I look out at you, and I see America," said President Bill Clinton to cheers - and his message was lost on no one.

"Let's face it, folks," the party's chief fundraiser, Terry McAuliffe, said of the Republicans, "they pretended to be Democrats."

Democrats, on the other hand, were just being themselves, in all their chaotic diversity.

While the Republican women speakers were all in a uniform of pastel skirt suits - from First Lady-in-waiting to suburban housewife - the Democrats offered a riot of colour and styles. Be yourselves, the motley crew were encouraged. "We are the people, not the powerful; we are what the other party pretended to be."

This made it all part of the show when things went wrong: the prepared videos did not always function; nor did all of the microphones. Some of the "ordinary" people brought to the platform to tell their stories were under-rehearsed; a few lost their thread.

No matter: this was all grist to the mill of genuineness.

But then, as McAuliffe yelled to the faithful in another setpiece, "Do you want the real deal or the illusion?" They yelled back in a Pantomime-style exchange of questions and answers that brought cheers and boos from delegates encouraged to look more like participants than spectators.

All of which, of course, took time. So while the Republicans kept rigidly within their prime-time TV slots, the Democrats ran consistently over time. On the first night by a massive half hour. But which network would dare cut off the President of the United States on song?

The Republicans called foul, claiming the overrun was a deliberate grab for more airtime. The Democrats protested their innocence, and who, after all, was to tell? In the stage-managed shambles of Los Angeles, the self-described party of the people could play it both ways - and it did.

- INDEPENDENT