THEY'D BETTER KEEP A LEASH ON THEIR PIG LACK OF TV VISUALS MAKES DEMS' CONVENTION A DULL EVENT INDEED.

Byline: Kimit A. Muston

I decided to ride the Red Line down to Pershing Square on Sunday to get a look at the demonstrators gathered there, thinking I was going to experience some echo of my own anti-war activities during the 1960s.

But wandering among those clean and intent faces brought back few memories. Oh, they seemed eager to protest poverty, the death penalty and political prisoners, but I don't remember the '60s being as sober as these folks were. Pershing Square probably hasn't been this drug-free in the last 50 years.

My favorite part of the demonstration on Sunday was the larger-than-life papier-mache figures created to draw the news cameras' attention. I especially liked a pig with Mayor Richard Riordan's and Police Chief Bernard Park's names printed on its behind. It was the best-made papier- mache pig I have ever seen. Somebody among the anarchists has a wonderful career ahead of them at some huge multinational graphics design firm.

It was clear the demonstrators were from out of town as none of them was armed with cell phones. All the phones in the square were glued to ears of the Fourth Estate who were there in force, their hungry eyes desperately searching the crowd for somebody who was about to do or say something dramatic and, hopefully, photogenically violent.

L.A. City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg was also present, wearing a very fetching straw sun hat, standing in the shade with five video cameras pointing at her and she never looked happier. I assume she has learned her lesson and has no intention of being arrested this week.

Everybody behaved themselves until just after 2 p.m. (in time for the East Coast news deadlines), when the entire orderly, sweaty mob burst out of the square and started to march toward Staples Center. That was when I decided to leave. It was too hot to run the risk of being tear-gassed.

About four hours later, the Shadow Convention opened its doors down on Figueroa, hungry for press coverage but with a serious image problem. The Shadow folks want to be seen as more raucous than the Democrats inside Staples Center but not as dangerous as the demonstrators outside. But that marks them in the media's mind as troublemakers who don't want to actually cause any trouble.

Arianna Huffington, the public face of the Shadow Convention, is Ms. Inside/Outside these days. She's plugged into the Washington party circuit, but she only managed to corral a couple of small-fry Democrats for her convention. What she needed Sunday was a headliner to make the evening news, as John McCain did in Philadelphia. The nearest she could get was ex-reprobate Gary Hart but he spoke about campaign finance reform, and that was like watching Pamela Anderson reading Shakespeare. With her clothes on.

Arianna is supposedly ``negotiating'' with Jesse Ventura to join her list of speakers, indicating she knows what is needed to end the news blackout: a good visual. Jesse doing three falls out of five with a couple of big campaign donors would certainly draw the cameras, but what could Arianna possibly offer him in return? He's got championship belts, a lovely wife and an entire state to play with. What more could he want? I can't wait to find out.

On Monday, the Shadows surrendered all hope of national coverage by focusing on poverty - a ratings killer, as any news director will tell you. Today's schedule is better, with Jesse Jackson, Tom Campbell, R-San Jose, and Maxine Waters, D-California, trading ideas on drug abuse. Gore Vidal will also be speaking, but it's been years since anybody cared about his cat fights.

The problem is, none of it is good television. The Shadow folks have got statistics and graphs and charts in depth to support their arguments that the criminalization of drug use is a waste of lives and money, that the rich are getting more powerful and that without campaign finance reform we don't stand a chance of solving those or a host of other problems.

But charts and graphs are boring on TV. The electronic journalists will stay in the shallow end of the press pool, covering the coronation in Staples Center or any violence out on the street - not because they want to but because it is the most visual image they've got.

The perfect image for them would be a high-speed chase involving grand theft papier-mache pig. To tell you the truth, I'd watch that myself.