Arts issues have gotten short shrift in political discussions this season as war, the environment, oil prices and a shaky economy have dominated public attention.

In an effort to push arts concerns onto the national radar -- and into the platforms of both parties -- the nonpartisan Americans for the Arts Action Fund (AAAF) staged high-profile events at both national conventions.

The Democrats were the more responsive, said Liz Bartolomeo, a spokesperson for group. "The Democratic platform incorporates our recommendations and more, but we didn't get very far in our talks with the Republicans," she said.

Still, several prominent Republicans spoke passionately about the importance of the arts Tuesday in St. Paul at a panel chaired by former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor earned his arts spurs when he required every student in the state to have classes in music and art every week.

Other panelists were equally aggressive on the issue: Missouri's Gov. Matt Blunt, a GOPer, boosted his state's per-capita arts funding from 49th in the country to 14th. And Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of public instruction, applied $4 million in No Child Left Behind money to special arts programs that he said produced dramatically improved test scores across the board. In all fields, art-program participants scored 30 percent ahead of a control group, he said, and scores for Latino students were 55 percent ahead.

Panelist John Rich, a country singer/songwriter, got an appreciative laugh when he said the future of American kids begins with eight things: "Do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti, do."

Among the AAAF's long-term goals are increasing support for the National Endowment for the Arts to $500 million, from $144.7 million today; making art a core subject in schools; providing cities with cultural tax incentives and block grants; strengthening historic-preservation programs; expanding percent-for-art programs; extending health-care coverage to the self-employed who often include artists, and expanding volunteer service programs in the arts.

Huckabee -- who plays bass guitar in a hobby rock group called Capitol Offense -- recalled that his music education started with a $99 mail-order guitar that he got for Christmas in 1966. His family was so poor they had to make payments on it for a year, but it changed his life.

He concluded by assigning the crowd some homework to underscore the importance of the arts: Read "Rise of the Creative Class" by Richard Florida, and "Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists," by Dennis Shasha and Cathy Lazere. And then "become politically active in influencing your local legislators," he said. "You'll be amazed to find that Republicans do like art, too."

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431