The well-dressed crowd of 700, representing much of California's Democratic establishment, waited expectantly after a sellout dinner in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. At the front tables were such glitterati as Actress Jane Fonda and her husband Assemblyman Tom Hayden, former California Governor Pat Brown and Film Producer Irwin Winkler. But as New York Governor Mario Cuomo prepared to deliver his speech, an oyster shucker working nearby was puzzled by all the hoopla. "What's the deal?" he asked. "Is he running for something?"
The question has dogged Cuomo for months, and in Los Angeles he again deflected it with his usual response:...