The 2000 Democratic National Convention is L.A.’s biggest opportunity to shine on the world stage or be humiliated since the triumphant 1984 Summer Olympic Games.

But with less than seven months to go before the convention opens at Staples Center, planning efforts are drawing more comparisons to the city’s failed NFL bid than to the glory days of the Olympics.

Powerful egos on the host committee have been rubbing each other the wrong way, a Republican mayor has been preoccupied with other matters, not enough money has been raised, and the host committee doubled in size to make it more politically correct has been having trouble reaching consensus.

The current problems have not reached crisis proportions. Indeed, many aspects of the convention planning continue to run smoothly, in some cases ahead of other cities where the convention has been held in recent years. Yet L.A.’s organizational efforts shed considerable light not all of it flattering on the city’s business and political leadership.

“What you are seeing here is emblematic of what is going on in L.A. as a whole. For a long time now, L.A. has been characterized by an increasing decentralization of both the economy and of leadership,” said Michael Dear, director of the Southern California Studies Center at USC. “In other cities, you can make a few quick phone calls and routinely get everyone on the same page. Here, it doesn’t work that way. It’s only been when people are willing to stick their neck out, like Eli Broad did with the Disney Concert Hall, that things have gotten done. And after a while, people might grow tired or uneasy about Eli Broad coming to the rescue all the time. There may be a fear that he’s becoming a de facto mayor.”

No one in charge

The origins of the host committee’s difficulties go back to the beginning of the campaign to lure the Democratic National Convention.

At that point, Riordan turned to Broad, David Geffen and Bill Wardlaw, all of whom have deep financial and political ties to the Democratic Party, as well as to President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Supermarket mogul Ron Burkle joined the effort a little later, but played enough of a role that he was named as the fourth co-chair of the host committee soon after the bid was submitted.

“Right from the start, Riordan should have put someone in charge, and that someone probably should have been Eli Broad,” said one observer with longstanding ties to the Democratic Party. “But there is no way that David Geffen or Ron Burkle would have accepted that. Bill Wardlaw, yes, because he’s used to that kind of (power-sharing) arrangement. But not the other two. Their egos are just too big to play second fiddle.”

After L.A. won the convention, the focus shifted to organization and planning. That’s when political consultant Lucy McCoy was selected as executive director of the host committee to run day-to-day operations. And it was also when another key decision was made: to expand the group of co-chairs.

“It was suggested to us that we broaden the group to include other members of this community, to include more than four white males,” Broad said last week. “And we did that.”

So four more co-chairs were added a Latino, a Latina, a white woman and an African-American man.

Process slows down

As a result, the host committee began to look more like the Rebuild L.A. panel that was formed after the 1992 riots. That board, which ballooned to 52 members, eventually collapsed under both its own weight and the task of trying to rebuild L.A.’s urban core.

With eight co-chairs, sources say, the convention’s host committee has taken longer to reach decisions, especially on the fund-raising side.

Dear said that expanding the committee was an essential step that slowed the process down.

“Not only do you need diversity to show the Democrats that you are being inclusive, but increasingly, that’s what you have to do in L.A. in the first place,” Dear said. “Inclusiveness is absolutely essential in L.A., but it does slow things down.”

Sources say some of the other co-chairs may have resented Broad’s efforts to take a leadership role. “Eli Broad is the type of person who will sometimes make decisions unilaterally. He can’t help it; that’s the way he is,” said one source. “That can rub some people the wrong way.”

There also may have been some tension over the degree of involvement of the co-chairs.

“David Geffen rarely shows up for meetings,” one source said. “That’s the way he is. But some of the co-chairs who have given extensively of their time may not have initially been totally comfortable with this. Once they understood that’s how he operates, I think that was the end of the issue.”

More important, according to senior officials with the convention effort, was Riordan’s hands-off approach for most of last year.

“Riordan was the one person who by virtue of his position could have smoothed over any tensions and sharpened the focus, especially on the fund-raising side, and he was missing in action,” said one source.

The official explanation from Riordan is that he was preoccupied with other pieces of business, like charter reform, school board elections and the Y2K/millennium planning. But privately, observers say there was a bigger factor at play: Riordan is a Republican and didn’t want to muscle too deeply into the planning of a Democratic convention.

“I have heard some grumbling about the prospect of too much Republican influence on this convention,” said one longtime Democratic observer. “That may have been some cause for concern, especially at the host committee level.”

Riordan takes over

But once U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Riordan to take a more prominent role, all concerns about Republican influence seemed to disappear. Riordan acted swiftly, announcing that he had placed his top finance official, Jennifer Roth, in charge of coordinating the planning between his office, various city agencies, the host committee and the DNC.

In fact, Riordan himself said last week that his office is “taking over the running of the Democratic National Convention.”

That had been the missing ingredient a chief executive for the planning process, as Peter Ueberroth was for the planning of the 1984 Olympics.

“That is exactly what Feinstein told Riordan, that it can’t work this way. There has to be one guy at the top,” said one senior official connected with the host committee. “And she should know; she’s been there before.” Feinstein played a leadership role in putting on the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, when she was mayor of that city.

With Riordan now deeply involved in the planning process, convention officials are more optimistic that they will reach their goals, maybe even ahead of schedule.

“There’s no question that we will ultimately get to our goal of putting on the convention,” one official said. “It’s just that until now, there has been a lot more agony in the process than we would have liked.”

The most pronounced “agony” has been on the fund-raising side. While L.A. was bidding on the convention, Broad told Democratic officials that the host committee wanted to have virtually all of the necessary $35.3 million raised by the end of 1999. Instead, only about 70 percent of the funds or $25 million had been raised. The revised goal is to raise the rest by the end of the first quarter.

In the last few weeks, Riordan has succeeded in getting at least another $1 million in commitments, leaving only about $9 million.