L.A. looks for love, not war when Democrats descend

By Arthur Spiegelman/Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For a city that exports images to the world stage -- eternal sunshine, swaying palm trees, gorgeous women and more stars than inhabit the heavens -- Los Angeles has always had a problem with its own sense of self.

Just what is it? Glamorous Hollywood? Wealthy Beverly Hills? Perfectly placed Malibu? Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city? Or the home of clogged freeways, earthquakes, ruinous fires, the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the 1992 riots that left 55 dead and close to a billion dollars in damage?

Or is it the embodiment of urban schizophrenia: a place with more Rolls-Royces and more people without health insurance than any other major American metropolis?

With thousands of Democrats and news hounds about to descend on the town for the party's national convention, city officials are hoping for a major morale boost even as their police force prepares for riots.

When all the out-of-towners depart sometime next week, officials would love to say as Sally Field did in her 1985 Oscar acceptance speech, made, of course, from a Los Angeles podium: "You like me. You really like me."

Basically, at the moment, a lot of Americans don't like Los Angeles for a series of ill-defined reasons.

New Yorkers, who seem to be one of the larger migrant groups in Los Angeles, complain continually about the city's lack of a decent bagel or a subway system that goes where they want it to go -- home to Manhattan.

Non-New Yorkers, who have other concerns, complain that the place is smoggy, flaky, frequently foolish, irrationally faddish and filled with fakes on cell phones-- phonies who are always reinventing or augmenting themselves with breast implants, hair transplants and plastic surgery.

Local newspapers seem to thrive on ads from plastic surgeons willing to rebuild any body part in 24 hours, even the ones that can't be mentioned in polite public forums.

And it is not unusual for a resident of Los Angeles to decide that it is time to get noticed by erecting a billboard in honor of oneself -- as did a woman named Angelyne, who is the towering toast of Hollywood Boulevard and the 405 freeway.

But organizers of the 2000 Democratic convention say the public has got Los Angeles all wrong and the place deserves better than it gets from an Eastern media dominated by people who think driving two hours for a decent pizza is -- somehow, can you believe it? -- wrong.

Los Angeles deserves a break and that is what the $48 million convention may really be all about: Fairness to L.A..

Ben Austin, the communications director of the LA 2000 Convention Committee, says that it is time to fine-tune the city's image and position the sprawling town of never-endingfreeways for what it really is -- the city that will dominate the country in the 21st Century, the way New York dominated the 20th Century.

Fugedaboudit NooYark, your day is done.

"When Philadelphia hosted the Republican convention last month its challenge was to say who it was and to put itself back on the national map. Our challenge is to use our 15 minutes in the national spotlight to redefine our story and the story of our community," Austin said. "Los Angeles does not realize it but it is a cutting-edge city," he added.

Austin argues that the city was in no shape to host a convention eight years ago -- the year of the devastating riots -- nor even four years ago when the city was still trying to shake off the twin hangovers of a major earthquake and the racially polarizing O.J. Simpson murder trial.

But now, the economy is booming thanks to high tech computer businesses, Hollywood and the low tech rag trade and the city is on a roll, attracting talent from across the United States and abroad.

"This is a town of image-makers and if any one can pull off the convention, it is L.A.. But whether the city fathers can come up with an image as effective as having 84 grand pianos to welcome the 1984 Olympics is an open question," said Los Angeles Magazine executive editor Michael Walker.

Eric Schockman, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, said Los Angeles is at the heart of major changes now sweeping the country -- from moving from a white-dominated society to a multiracial one to going from an economy based on heavy industry to one focused on high tech.

"California is a land of kooks and nuts. People come out here to the edge of the Pacific. This is the last frontier. But you have a pool of talented, creative, cutting edge individuals who come to live here for the weather, the lifestyle and the creative thinking," Schockman said.

But no matter what happens next week, nothing can ever beat the last Democratic convention to be held in Los Angeles -- the 1960 affair that nominated John F. Kennedy, heard him preach the gospel of the New Frontier. "That was the most glamorous event, unbelievable," says Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne.

Reporters covering that convention were given free eye drops in their press packs to counter the city's legendary smog. This year the host committee is supplying the media with sunscreen. They say the smog is gone in the new, better-than-ever Los Angeles.

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