CONVENTION WISDOM

By CALVIN TRILLIN

As I was trying to turn my attention to the Democratic Convention in Chicago, friends and neighbors kept asking me about celebrities I might have run into when I was in San Diego observing the Republicans close up. They seemed almost unwilling to believe that the two most famous people I saw were Democrats, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

Again and again I had to insist that the man I saw was indeed George Stephanopoulos, even though he was apparently trying to travel incognito by combing back that lock of hair he customarily has falling over his forehead. Carville didn't even bother with disguises. He was blatantly Carville.

Why were they there? That's like asking why the man in the bumblebee suit was there, strolling around the lobby of the hotel where most of the press had headquarters. Conventions are gatherings of people any number of other people might want to talk to. At a travel-agents convention I once wandered into, operators of cruise lines and resort hotels were there to talk to the travel agents; advertising departments of travel magazines were there to talk to the operators of cruise lines and resort hotels. For all I know, manufacturers of something like expense-account forms might have been there to talk to the advertising departments of travel magazines.

Actually, I did ask the man in the bumblebee suit what he was doing at the Republican National Convention--or, to be more precise, why he was dressed in a bumblebee suit. An environmental statement? Something about what federal prosecutors sometimes call a sting? I did not receive a satisfactory answer.

Because of that, I decided not to interview a Bill Clinton look-alike I spotted in the same hotel lobby. A reporter who had run into him at some other gathering told me she'd heard that he'd had plastic surgery.

"Who did he look like before that?" I asked. "Michael Dukakis? Walter Mondale?"

No, she said. He looked less like Bill Clinton. I'm not sure I believe the plastic-surgery talk. There are any number of American men who, with some adjustment of hairstyle and accent, could more or less pass for Bill Clinton. The same was true of George Bush. James Carville is another matter.

I knew a George Bush look-alike. Archie Kessell was married to a high school classmate of mine. Archie didn't have to look like George Bush unless he wanted to. Ordinarily you'd take him for what he was--a retired engineer from Huntington Beach, California. Then he'd make his little adjustments, a tape would play Hail to the Chief, and you'd find yourself in the presence of the President of the United States. Archie was an affable man, but he was firm about not coming on until Hail to the Chief was played. I always respected him for that. You've got to have standards.

A National Journal story about the Bill Clinton look-alike said he made $500,000 last year. It occurred to me that Archie probably hadn't pulled down that kind of money being George Bush. Then it occurred to me that Bill Clinton doesn't pull down that kind of money being Bill Clinton. Is something out of whack here, or is this just the unfettered operation of a free market?

Which leaves the question of whether reporters in Chicago this week will be bumping into a Dole look-alike or into some real Republican who didn't have a lock of hair falling over his forehead in the first place. Or will they have to content themselves with an enigmatic man dressed in a bumblebee suit?