"It was almost like real life.

The candidates wore primary colors, employed strong eye contact with constituents and could talk their way out of a tight spot.

The differences: in extreme views, admitted gun ownership and a pierced tongue.

These are America's presidential candidates, according to the Showtime cable network, and they have come to bring out the vote in Charlottesville.

Seven people - ranging from Richard Mack, a Utah Libertarian, to Bruce Friedrich, a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals employee from Virginia - argued political points Sunday while being filmed at the University of Virginia for a reality TV show, 'The American Candidate.' It premieres Aug. 1.

One 'presidential' contestant will be picked at the end of the show's 10-week run and given $200,000 and a national speaking tour. The aim, say producers, is to promote interest in the political process.

The first indicator that this was not politics as usual, however, came before filming.

As young crew members with fashionable haircuts and wires in their ears scooted around the stage at Cabell Auditorium, a large man in a Sean John tee-shirt chatted with female audience members.

It's Montel's bodyguard, the rumor spread.

A chance to see Montel Williams was the chief draw for many audience members, not politics, some admitted.

But once the debate started, the star quality of the candidates became apparent.

Responding to more liberal candidates' opposition to the death penalty, Mack cut loose: 'If you don't think a child rapist or a child murderer deserves capital punishment, there's something wrong with you,' said the ex-police officer and former Libertarian candidate for Utah governor.

'It may not be a deterrent, but that guy won't do it again.'

Keith Boykin, a gay-rights activist and a popular candidate with the approximately 100 audience members, condemned politicians for asking for churches' endorsements.

'We need to stop using religion as a weapon of hate and start using it as a tool for love,' he said to applause.

North Carolina conservative Park Gillespie said he owned two assault weapons but that if he were a wife-beater he should forfeit that right.

Malia Lazu, a progressive biracial woman from Hawaii sporting a tongue piercing, called herself a product of affirmative action and said the laws need to focus on social status as well as race.

'It's not just color,' she said. 'It's class.'

She and Mack clashed on several points, including gun control and the death penalty, but Lazu said later that the disagreements don't get personal.

'Richard and I agree on lots of things,' Lazu said. 'We have a mutual respect.'

The seven candidates - the show started with 10 last week - will hit the streets and try to recruit voters today with help from volunteers from Sunday's audience.

Ballot boxes will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Old Cabell Hall, Central Place on the Downtown Mall and the fountain at Barracks Road Shopping Center.

Larry Sabato, director of UVa's Center for Politics and co-moderator for the debate, declined to say who he thinks will win the contest, but noted that the candidates will have to make compromises if they run for real political office outside such liberal enclaves as Berkeley, Calif. or Madison, Wis.

'A lot of what I've heard from you would not get you elected,' he cautioned them." (Kate Andrews, The Daily Progress, June 21, 2004)