PUBLIC FORUM HOSTING DEMS EVERY 40 YEARS IS MUCH TOO OFTEN, TOO COSTLY.

These conventions may have originally served a purpose. They permitted each party's candidates to travel the country with their message. Then after fair primaries, the party made its choice. Controversial issues were argued in open session.

Not so today. Witness, for example, the recent Republican convention in Philadelphia. Months before the convention, George W. Bush, (who rejected matching funds), with his $70 million and growing treasury, atomized all opposition. Given a choice, I would have preferred watching a ``Wide, Wide World,'' at Disneyland to that convention's ``Rainbow Review.'' The only Caucasians visible were the all-white delegates in the audience (praying while a gay Republican legislator was at the lecturn speaking).

Why not make the selection procedures meaningful? Rotate each state's primary election voting date. This would give the larger states' voters an even break. Legislatively eliminate soft money so that a candidate with many wealthy supporters can no longer put a preliminary lock on a party's nomination. Level the playing field. Have taxpayers foot the bill. Subsidize each party based on its turnout in the previous national election. This would cost taxpayers much less in the long run.

Do away with the no-longer-meaningful political conventions. Fill the gap with more and earlier candidate debates. See how each candidate is able to think on his/her feet. This is the ultimate trial by fire. The three- hour-long Lincoln-Douglas debates never lost a watcher. Can we make history repeat itself?

- Louis Robins

Van Nuys

As one who volunteered to work at the Democratic convention, I was assigned to work for the Office of the Secretary of the Democratic National Convention Committee. Office staffers (most of whom were from the Washington, D.C., area) showed complete disdain for volunteers, treating many of us like we were not worthy to be in the same room as them.

My last assignment was to be downtown before 8 a.m., yet the supervisor did not appear until after 10 a.m. I waited around 65 minutes to drive a staffer three blocks in a DNC car that used city of Los Angeles facilities to fill its gas tank.

I came away from this experience seeing that the ``party of the people'' is really the ``party of the Eastern elite who have never held a real job.'' I cannot vote for any Democrat in this election.

- Greg Badovinac

North Hollywood

To whom are we indebted for the great ``honor'' of hosting the DNC? Who do we thank for allowing us the wonderful privilege of giving away $4 million of our tax dollars? The mayor? The City Council? Maybe those same generous folks could dip into that same deep pocket and reimburse the people who lost income and salaries for the week their businesses were closed. What an appalling waste of money and time both conventions were. With both nominees pre-decided, they became merely an excuse to party while we foot the bill. The best part of the whole thing was watching the Los Angeles Police Department control those rioters and vandals in the guise of protesters. Kudos to the police!

It's been 40 years since the last (L.A.) convention; let's hope it's at least 40 years before the next one.

- Margot Trasatti

Sherman Oaks

The convention served a purpose, and it also was a waste of much-needed tax dollars. The $4 million the city gave to the Democrats could have bought a lot of school supplies or repaired a lot of sidewalks and potholes. Instead it helped to pay for a lot of fancy signs.

I learned that Democrats are for universal health care, clean water and clean air. They also said they are more compassionate then Republicans. Evidently that is why they want to ban the execution of mass murderers and other killers and believe that terminating a fetus or killing a near-birth child is OK.

I also learned that I am wealthy and chances are they consider you wealthy also. However, even though I am wealthy, I was promised free prescriptions. They did not say if a prescription deduction similar to the Medicare deduction would be taken out of our Social Security checks.

- Bill Zelenka

Granada Hills

According to the Daily News on Aug. 19, Republican Mayor Richard Riordan stated: ``We can handle an event like this and accommodate everyone.''

Oh, really, Mr. Mayor? As a resident and homeowner in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, I would like for the mayor to tell us what the four days of happy times for the out-of-towners cost Angelenos. Earlier, the mayor told us that the event would generate $135 million in benefits to the Los Angeles city economy.

Did we make a profit? Since we all have contributed to this ``great cash cow bonanza,'' I would like to see an itemized list of expenses and income. According to The Wall Street Journal (Aug. 19), the convention hasn't done much of anything for Los Angeles business. The Journal tells us that tourists and business travelers shunned the city to avoid the convention crunch.

It looks to me like the only real winner is Mayor Riordan, perhaps in personal political perks generated while he hobnobbed with the leaders of the Democratic Party and the Hollywood crowd.

We showed the world how democracy works by hosting the DNC, but does the world really care?

- Shirley A. Minser

Los Angeles

As a conservative, I have to plead guilty to watching and enjoying the Democratic National Convention. It was sensational!

Of course, I had the sound turned off.

- Herb Wiener

Encino

Prominent members of the Democratic and Republican hierarchies admit that the term ``nominating convention'' is now a misnomer, that the conventions are all about advertising. Indeed, I've read several enthusiastic quotes in the last few days about how effective and cheap this particular form of advertising is.

Well, of course it's cheap - it's paid for by the taxpayers. Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that it was cruel to force a man to pay for the advancement of political ideas with which he disagreed, yet that is now our system.

John McCain-style campaign ``reform'' will only further institutionalize this abuse. No, we need a paradigm shift, and need look no further than the Libertarian Convention held in Anaheim last month. That event was financed completely by its attendees, and their candidate, Harry Browne, has refused federal matching funds, just as he did four years ago. That's why this year I'll be voting for ``the Party of Principle.''

- Brian Mulholland

North Hollywood

Yes, the conventions did inspire me and help me affirm my vote. One convention in particular: the Green Party Convention, which was given to me on video tape, having not been broadcast on television. My politics have always been left-leaning. This convention's speeches and platforms helped me remember why.

- Craig Lennon Kysar

Sherman Oaks

The Daily News (Aug. 17) quoted AFL-CIO head John Sweeney's remarks about Ralph Nader's candidacy: ``. . . the bottom line is that one of two major candidates will be the next president. Anything that distracts from that is really not helpful to the process.''

Not helpful to what process? The process of maintaining the lock on the door to third parties? In our republic, ``process'' should include an open discussion of political ideas and a multitude of candidates.

To those who normally do not vote, I encourage you to join in the process and check out Ralph and his Greens, Pat Buchanan and his Reformers, Harry Browne and his Libertarians, and Howard Phillips and his Constitutionalists. With so little difference in the two establishment parties, do not waste your vote. Make the process work. Vote with your heart and your mind. Vote for the third-party candidate that truly believes in and promotes your ideas and your ideals.

- Jeffrey S. Skinner

Northridge

I would like to express my views on the protest rallies during the convention in Los Angeles. I'm a trade unionist from Tehachapi, and my wife and I were there to remind the Democratic Party that they were once the party of working people. The restructuring of our economy and social structure to the tunes of the multinational corporate bosses is something everyone should fear.

Our politicians from both parties jump as high as their business bosses tell them to. I found a willingness with the marchers to attempt to bring people to the forefront rather than money. On a social level, I found myself feeling more in common with Black Bloc and other protesters than the delegates walking to the conference every day. I met some really good people during my five days in Los Angeles, and I plan to continue my attempts to change the way we work and to make our distribution system a fair and equable one.

I didn't see any reason to continue to support the state and its army of cops and bureaucrats who amaze me with their ability to grind a person's freedom under their boots.

- Bob Reilly

PACE Local 8-0052

Tehachapi

Well, the Democrats' convention is over, thank God.

Al Gore has pledged all our (meaning working folks) earnings for the next few weeks to a cornucopia of new government programs (can anyone say ``the era of big government is over?'') aimed at any special-interest group that can define itself as such, with the obvious exception of the National Rifle Association. By golly, De Tocqueville had it right a couple hundred years ago when he observed that the American republic was doomed when the electorate realized they had the power to ``vote to themselves the largesse of the treasury.'' If Gore's acceptance speech isn't the epitomization of that kind of largesse, I don't know what is!

Further, as to the ``economic regional benefits'' that Los Angeles was supposed to reap due to the convention:

According to the first analyses available, the economic input to the region is about $4 million in Beverly Hills as the big winner, just enough to offset the last-minute cash pledge from the Los Angeles City Council (kudos to the city of Beverly Hills for not buying into the hype and just reaping the bennies).

Sounds like a deficit situation overall, I'm sure glad I don't live within the boundaries of the city of L.A. I'd hate to think that my tax dollars went to that orgiastic self-aggrandizing mess downtown.

- Brian Baker

Saugus

I know whom I was going to vote for. It was a real waste of time and money. Giving the DNC an open checkbook starting out with $7 million, the nerve of the DNC, who came back asking for $4 million more. Where is the $26 million that was raised in Washington, D.C.?

The people in Los Angeles have been told to go without a lot of city services we pay for because there is no money in the budget. We get the same story when we call city services or try and get our overpaid councilman to do something. As always, the constituents pay for it in the end; our councilmen have a deaf ear when it comes to us. It would be nice to have our sidewalks fixed, to have city trees trimmed so the overgrown limbs don't fall on our homes or in the street, or not to wake up to flooded streets as old water mains are breaking. The city repair list is really endless.

Who really cared to hear all that baloney being peddled out at Staples Center by these know-it-all delegate speakers, unless you like baloney and ate it up? I didn't have the stomach for all the baloney being passed out.

Now you're asking what did I learn from all this? I learned we ended up with a bunch of first-class morons that God ever put on this earth who are on the City Council. With the waste of tax money that went on by having this convention, the city went about chasing its tail by removing trees, and now having to replant them, reinstall mail boxes that were removed, installing and then removing the fence around the center. I hope that a lesson was learned here by our City Council.

We should put an end to the City Council being able to waste money like they have been doing.

- Benjamin R. Laufer

Sherman Oaks

Political conventions are purposely made sensational. Millions are spent mostly to stimulate passions. It discounts the drudgery demanded of each to care for the serious business that lies ahead. Integrity and the carrying out of commitments is what brings about sensations, not the other way around.

Conventions haven't . . . (and never) will change my mind about the right to life, the right of all rights. It's surprising to know many politicians are hoodwinked over the right to choose, a cliche that tells you you have the right to choose evil. What an absurdity.

We grievously error by treating the Bible as last of the least, when in fact this holy writ takes precedence over the Constitution.

We must consider civilization, too, has its three separate and equal powers functioning: religion, families and government.

- John Curti

Tarzana