TAKING POLITICAL BABY STEPS

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS

Richard Gere has it easy fighting China: just hanging out with the Dalai Lama and leading protests in front of the White House. You want hard? Try being Alec Baldwin, head of the Creative Coalition, balled up on a bus for a three-hour predawn ride from New York to Massachusetts to collect signatures for state-campaign-finance reform. The coffee's awful, and his cell phone doesn't work. "We should have a working phone, even if you have to FedEx one," the actor growls as he tosses the offending cellular to an aide. Maybe he'd be in a better mood if he were in jeans and sweaters like the other volunteers. But Baldwin is twisting about in a tight gray suit. Comparing himself to the rancid glop that fishermen use as bait, he says, "I'm the chum."

And chum he is. From the moment he enters the Greek cultural center that serves as the tour's home base, people are after him, begging for autographs (Baldwin obliges) and introducing their wannabe-actor friends (Baldwin is polite). It could be worse. He could be younger brother Billy, who is along for the tour and is the center of a permanent amoeba of giggling girls. But it could be better. He could be older sister Beth, who sits unnoticed amid her famous brothers. "They have sisters?" asks someone in the crowd. "We're known as Nothing and Nobody," jokes Beth about herself and sister Jane.

So what's the issue again? Campaign-finance reform? Strategizing with volunteers, Baldwin blames Big Business and the neediness of political candidates ("These people are junkies," he says). He also blames the Republicans, who he says are capable of "horrendous acts." But that's a lot to load onto your average American, so when Baldwin steps into the Holyoke Mall, he intends to keep it simple and nonpartisan (which the Creative Coalition purports to be). He will simply ask the common folk if they want to clean up the political system and get rid of all that tainted money. It becomes immediately clear, however, that Baldwin is going to have a communications problem. A scream rips the air, and a saleswoman from the Foot Locker, dressed like a black-and-white-striped referee, charges Baldwin and throws an arm around him. "Can I have your autograph?" she asks. "Quite frankly, I'd like to have yours," replies Baldwin in a cool comeback. He starts to explain his cause and the need for people to sign the petition. But it is all in vain. She pays no attention to his moving lips, her gaze instead locked on his Aqua Velva blue eyes. She breaks her stare only long enough to yell, "Watch the store!"--a curious request since she's the only employee on duty.

Out of the crowd, hands stick out store receipts, corners of newspapers and blank checks for Baldwin's autograph. Most people, though, are having a hard time focusing on the issue. Baldwin spends a few minutes needling Arline and Arthur Hass on the merits of the petition. They sign, but the couple are not clear about what's going on. "I don't know. What's it for?" asks Arline. And some of those who think they know, well..."It's to get money from politics and put it into the environment," insists Velma Marotte. "More stars should get out and do this," says her friend Ethel Degal.

People want to talk about movies, his brothers, his wife Kim Basinger. "She's toasty, home in bed, while I'm up here killing myself," says Baldwin. And the questions get personal. One man mentions that his brother-in-law, a chiropractor, met Mrs. Baldwin and found her lovely. That's it. Baldwin rises. "Do me a favor," he says. "Tell him to keep his hands off my wife."

Does Baldwin want to follow Sonny Bono into the Capitol corridors? "Well, if you put it that way, the answer has to be no," cracks Baldwin. Seriously, he says, he's content to be an actor. But then there's family lore of how Xander (the Baldwin clan's nickname for him) always had that special charisma. "Mother said he'd be President," swears Beth. And like a politician, he sticks to a few practiced facts. His politics, however, are not quite local. All day he raises the example of Brookhaven, a nuclear lab leaking radioactive waste, as evidence of Big Business's nefarious influence. Brookhaven? Is that nearby? Well, no. It's on Long Island, New York, where Baldwin has a home in the posh Hamptons.

By day's close, Baldwin has given out more autographs than he's taken in. He argues that if only 20% of the people understand his fight, it's a victory. And all those people who think actors should stick to acting? "Go to hell," he says. Still, as he leaves his second and last mall stop, volunteer Kemal Latham exclaims, "He's coming back to sign autographs. Tells you all you need to know." Then he plugs, "Go see The Edge, in theaters now!"