Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Sun Lite for July 26, 2004

Lisa Ferguson

Monday, July 26, 2004 | 8:15 a.m.

Party people in the house

Tired of all the blather about presidential campaign promises, national conventions and pesky platforms? So were Jeff Grace, Matt Wentland and Doug Manley.

The men (from New Jersey, Wisconsin and Missouri, respectively) were perfect strangers until, following a night of Mardi Gras celebrations, their paths crossed in a New Orleans bar, where they no doubt found themselves waist-deep in beaded necklaces and what was most certainly spirited conversation about the sad state of this nation's parties - political and otherwise.

A few drinks later, Americans for a Better Party was created. The "grass-roots" group, headquartered in a two-car Chicago garage, is trying to round up members "of legal partying age" (21 or older) through its Web site, www.americansforabetterparty.org. It plans to shake - or stir, depending on how you like your martinis - things up this summer by getting people of all political and lifestyle preferences to agree on "the need to bring more partying into the lives of all Americans."

They're serious about this, folks: Beginning later this month, the AFBP founders plan to hit the campaign trail (presumably in their 1978 VW "apolitical" bus) in an effort to recruit members at rallies and transform such locales as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Cleveland and Denver into Party Centrals.

Meanwhile, a nationwide search is under way to find a presidential candidate that AFBP can call its own - a party animal "who can unite the country with a platform that calls for politics-free partying, issue-absent celebration and policy-exempt merriment."

According to Grace, a comedian who claims to be a former political consultant: "We've united to remind America that our forefathers truly intended a multi-party system, and to restore the lost tradition of spontaneous celebration in this country." Who wouldn't wanna drink to that?

Hair they go

Hold off on tapping those kegs just yet - at least until we've learned the answer to the burning question of this political season: Which presidential candidate has the best hair?

That totally irrelevant query was posed by the coif junkies at Wahl Clipper Corp., based in Sterling, Ill., as part of its 2004 Grooming Survey.

Exactly 1,009 adults were polled in May for the survey. The results: 51 percent voted for President Bush as having the best-looking locks, while 30 percent gave Democratic candidate John Kerry the nod. A full 10 percent responded that neither candidate has better hair; and 9 percent said they just didn't know.

Ladies first

Grooming habits aside, commanders-in-chief owe much of their political success to their wives - so reminds Carter Smith, author of the recently released to me "Presidents: Every Question Answered" (Hylas Publishing, $29.95).

Despite its title, Carter - who is also a "presidential scholar" - has included in the book profiles of each first lady in American history, beginning with Martha Custis Washington.

Turns out it took first lady No. 1 awhile to warm up to her title and duties, which included playing hostess for her hubby, President George Washington. She shied away, though, from public affairs.

Ditto for Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, writes Smith. Upon the election victory of her spouse, William Henry Harrison, the missus delayed her trip to the nation's capitol, and instead allowed her widowed daughter-in-law, Jane Findlay Irwin Harrison, to serve as White House hostess for a while. Unfortunately, President Harrison died before his wife ever made her way to Washington, D.C.

Abigail Smith Adams, on the other hand, was no shrinking violet. The wife of President John Adams was "so forceful," Smith reports, that the president's "political rivals began calling her 'Mrs. President.'"