Democrats Headed to Tinsletown in 2000 -- 03/16/1999

Democrats Headed to Tinsletown in 2000

16 March, 1999

By Bruce Sullivan
CNS Staff Writer

(CNS) – In 1988, the last time Vice President Al Gore ran for president, he was a little-known U.S. senator from Tennessee whose wife Tipper, along with Susan Baker the wife of then President Reagan's chief-of-staff Jim Baker, had formed the Parents Resource Music Center.

The PRMC, in forcing the recording industry to put warning labels on rap and rock songs with lyrics that extolled, among other things, violence, suicide, racism, misogyny, and Satanism, irked the entire entertainment industry and the Gores were not Hollywood's favorite couple.

Next year, however, Hollywood will welcome Gore with open arms, as the likely Democratic nominee for the presidency, since the Democratic National Committee announced yesterday that they will hold their 2000 convention in Los Angeles for the first time since 1960, when John F. Kennedy was their nominee.

Leading the drive to get the convention for LA was a private group of wealthy Democrats including co-founder of the Dreamworks film studio, David Geffen, and billionaire Democratic businessman Eli Broad. The group has pledged to raise $18.3 million for the event, making it the first privately sponsored American political convention.

Thirteen cities vied for the Democratic convention, but after the party's first choice, Philadelphia, opted to host the Republican convention instead, the list narrowed to three sites – Boston, Denver, and Los Angeles. Though both Boston and Denver made strong bids, DNC General Chair Roy Romer, a former Colorado governor, said Los Angeles would provide a better showcase for the Democrats. Outgoing DNC Chairman Steve Grossman is from Massachusetts.

"California represents the great diversity of the country and is a trend setter," DNC Deputy Press Secretary Peter Kauffmann told CNS.

Philadelphia has promised $50 million in order to host the Republican convention whereas LA only offered the Democrats around $35 million.

Holding the convention in LA may be a mixed blessing for the Democrats. California voters tend as a whole towards conservatism and have only voted for two Democratic presidential candidates since 1950 – Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson. Although the state may be trending Democratic, since Californians just elected moderate Democrat Gray Davis as governor and have two liberal Democratic U.S. Senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Besides the infamous entertainment industry, Southern California is also the home of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and the Buddhist temple that was at the center of a Democratic Party fund-raising scandal associated with Vice President Gore.

California also has 54 electoral votes, which most analysts say are vital to winning the presidency. But holding a nominating convention in California doesn't guarantee a presidential victory, or even carrying the state, as the Republicans found out in 1996 when the held their convention in San Diego only to see Bob Dole lose both California's electoral votes and the election to President Clinton.

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