Party conventions these days seem to combine utter predictability and a complete departure from normal reality to those of us who watch from a distance. Close up, a sharp-eyed observer, especially a newly naturalized citizen from the Philippines, can see that at heart the Democratic Convention is an only-in-America experience. PNS correspondent Rene Ciria-Cruz is an editor of New California Media (www.NCMonline.com) and an associate editor of the San Francisco-based Filipinas magazine. His e-mail address is reneccruz@pacificnews.org.

As a naturalized U.S. citizen seeing a political convention up close for the first time, I had an "only in America" experience on Saturday, August 12 at a lavish bash for journalists and Democratic delegates.

The party, thrown by the nonpartisan L.A. Convention 2000 committee at the Performing Arts Center plaza, was a very small-d democratic party, and "very LA." An ethnically diverse and well-dressed throng of 10,000 feast on an endless array of ethnic comestibles -- assorted sushi, shrimp in couscous, buttermilk fried chicken, beef taquitos, all for free. Likewise the wines and spirits, which flowed all evening.

Imagine holding a feast for 10,000 in the middle of sad Downtown L.A., with only chirpy volunteers checking the invitations. Perhaps such an event is only possible in this, the world's most advanced capitalist system, where those who must do without have been thoroughly educated to know their place.

In the Philippines, where I come from, the president held an open-air feast a few months ago and a swarm of poor people from the neighborhood crashed through the security cordon and ravished the buffet.

Neither the Democratic Party nor the GOP would stand for that form of direct democracy. Even Pat Buchanan would go berserk if peasants with pitchforks broke into his study and grabbed his favorite chardonnay.

Offering a sharp contrast was the Free Mumia Abu Jamal rally held the next day at Pershing Square. There was no free food for those that gathered, just bottled water being hawked by organizers for a dollar. But there was infectious collective enthusiasm, great rap-salsa and World Beat, and a whiff of hemp in the air. It must be noted that no one in this insurrection-minded crowd tried to crash the Saturday affair.

Anyway, you can't fault the convention committee for pulling out all the stops, even if it cost $1.5 million. It just wants L A to be "the capital of the 21st century." In the cold language of profit and loss, it wants the 35,000 visitors expected during the convention to pump $132 million into the local economy during the week. (They may have trouble with long division -- that works out to $3771 per visitor.)

Good thing it wasn't a Democratic Party party. The Gore campaign would no doubt have found it too racy -- Gore's people had been busy browbeating Rep. Loretta Sanchez into moving her fundraiser out of the Playboy Mansion, to the disappointment of many men who were dying to listen to speeches in that setting.

So the campaign might have been appalled at the very tanned "Girls from Ipanema," nearly busting out of frilly bikini tops and short shorts, on stage serving up a torrid Brazilian song-and-grind routine and urging the audience to "wiggle your butts."

Were the Girls too much for delegates?

"Heck, no!" yelled Betty Pitt, a delegate from Maryland and veteran of four previous conventions. "We just came from the gospel stage show over there, so it balances out."

Spoken like a tolerant, true-blue, middle-class liberal from the party's core. The Gore campaign should listen.

There was also way too much alcohol, any and all combinations of potent potables you might want. Gore-Lieberman might look askance at this, too. Didn't Thomas Jefferson's dream of an America of independent yeomen-farmers die stillborn because, among other things, ye olde yeoman and ye olde indentured help tended to work the fields only a couple of days and then got soused the rest of the God-given week?

Of course it's possible the wall-to-wall open bars were part of a GOP conspiracy to make the Democrats and representatives of the liberal media stagger into the opening of the convention. After all, the host committee is headed by a Republican, L.A. Mayor Richard J. Riordan, who delivered a cryptically short speech.

"Hellooo, fellow Angelenos," he said. Not hello, Democratic delegates or hello, biased media people. "We're going to put on the best convention any political party ever had." That was it. And he seemed to say that last line with a wink in his voice.