FOR A BRIEF PERIOD this weekend, Los Angeles supplanted New York as America’s “fun city.” On Saturday, the city played host to the California Republican party’s fall convention and a Democratic anti-recall rally. The following morning, Bill Clinton took center stage at LA’s First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city’s oldest black congregation. Clinton’s appearance was recall symmetry at its best. Today, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver will appear on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Clinton–the guy who flirted with going mano-a-mano with Oprah on the tube–beat her to California in an effort to save the endangered Democratic governor.
“Gray Davis and I have been friends for a long time,” Clinton told the faithful, “and I don’t want this happening to him. This is way bigger than him. It’s you I’m worried about. It’s California I worry about. I don’t want you to become a laughingstock or the beginning of a circus in America where we throw people out for making tough decisions.”
