CALIFORNIA'S 424 DELEGATES JUST A TRENDY POLITICAL BUNCH.

Byline: Associated Press 

California's delegation arrived at the Democratic National Convention this weekend to the crash of symbols.

Delegates representing the youth movement of the '60s, the Year of the Woman and the disabled are among those crashing their symbolic cymbals in the Golden State's 485-member contingent.

Tom Hayden, arrested the last time he tried to get into a Democratic convention in the Windy City, is being welcomed 28 years later as a something of a returning hero. Now, he wears a laminated delegate badge.

The former Chicago 7 defendant is a living symbol of the tumult and idealism of the 1960s, of the opposition to the Vietnam War that transformed the 1968 Democratic convention into the Days of Rage.

In all, 424 delegates and 61 alternates from California poured into Chicago, filling the Chicago Hilton and Towers for the four-day convention, with a schedule packed with meetings and mixers.

Of this year's delegates, a total of five attended the 1968 convention: Willie L. Brown Jr., now the mayor of San Francisco; Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, now a Los Angeles County supervisor; John Vasconcellos, a state assemblyman; Bill Lockyer, a state senator; and Agar Jaicks, an activist with a continued commitment to Democratic politics.

One 1996 delegate, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, one of the leaders of the state delegation, most certainly wasn't at the 1968 convention. He was with the Marines in Vietnam.

Also heading the delegation are California's two U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who get coveted prime time podium positioning Wednesday evening as part of a presentation on Democratic women in the Senate.

Symbolic personalities as significant as Hayden are Feinstein and Boxer. Both were elected during in 1992, Year of the Woman. They succeeded in tilting the gender balance in the Senate by a factor of two.

Another woman lawmaker from California also is getting a high-profile spot at the convention.

Michela Alioto, granddaughter of the famous San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto. She is now the Democrats' best hope to unseat a Republican congressman in the state and introduces Vice President Al Gore on Thursday night.

Alioto, who uses a wheelchair, will also be the second person with a disability to take the podium.

In what promises to be an emotional address, actor Christopher Reeve, Hollywood's ``Superman,'' and paralyzed from the neck down, will speak Monday night.

One more Californian gets a podium spot, but not during prime time. Actor-activist Edward James Olmos will make a presentation during Monday afternoon's session.