Los Angeles -- It was the first ever national political convention to take place in the "city of angels." (Los Angeles means "angels" in Spanish.) The year was 1960. Democrats gathered and selected John F. Kennedy as their nominee for president. Now, 40 years later, they are holding their second convention in this sprawling city to nominate Al Gore as their standard bearer in the 2000 election.

Forty years is not long in the history of a political party or in the life of a nation, but it is hard to overstate how different the political climate was four decades ago and how dissimilar the 1960 convention was from the convention under way this year. In 1960, the Cold War dominated the political landscape. The civil rights revolution and the women's movement that would transform the Democratic Party had not yet fully materialized.

As far as the conventions are concerned, the key difference between 1960 and 2000 is the number of state primaries in which the voters, rather than local party leaders, select the nominee by voting for convention delegates. In 1960, there were few primaries. Consequently, conventions were still contested, contentious events because no candidate could win a sufficient number of delegates "pledged" to him in the primaries to prevail at the convention. The outcome was not known for certain

until the final roll call of the states.

That was certainly true in 1960. The first session of the convention was called to order on July 11 at the Memorial Sports Arena, just south of downtown. Frank Sinatra, at the time a close Kennedy friend, opened it with a jazzy rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. The 4,000 delegates and alternates were mostly white males, many of whom had been selected out of the public eye in the famed "smoke-filled rooms."

In contrast, the 4,600 delegates meeting here this year in the downtown Staples Center are mostly minorities and women, and most of the delegates were pledged to the inevitable nominee, Al Gore, long before this convention opened. In fact, Vice President Gore clinched the nomination in March through his victories in the primaries, held in over 40 states.

When John F. Kennedy arrived in Los Angeles in 1960, he did not know for sure, unlike Al Gore, whether the delegates would nominate him. Although Kennedy had won a number of impressive primary victories, most notably in West Virginia and Wisconsin, he did not have enough delegates pledged to him in those primaries to secure the nomination.

Moreover, he faced outspoken opposition at the convention from Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson and more subtle opposition from Missouri Senator Stuart Symington and Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who had been the party's standard bearer in the 1952 and 1956 elections, losing both times. Kennedy did ultimately win the nomination on the first ballot, but it was by no means a foregone onclusion.

Kennedy named one of his rivals for the nomination, Lyndon Johnson, as his choice for vice president during the convention, not before it convened -- as has occurred this year when Al Gore named Senator Joseph Lieberman as his choice for vice president a week before this year's convention began.

The major difference between the 1960 and the 2000 Democratic Conventions is that the presidential nominee now is almost always known in advance of the convention and is essentially assured of a first-ballot victory because of the dramatic increase in the number of state primaries and the resulting number of delegates who are "pledged" to the candidate who was victorious in those contests. He also usually names his vice presidential choice ahead of

time to avoid any unpleasant surprises during the convention.

At conventions in earlier years, it sometimes took dozens of ballots before a nominee was selected. At the 1924 Democratic Convention, for example, the delegates went through 103 ballots before selecting their nominee for that year -- James Davis -- who lost. Battles over delegation selection and fights over the party platform also were frequent, providing ample fodder for a hungry press.

"It is one of the most important developments in modern American politics," says Byron Shafer in his book, "Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention." The change reflects voters' belief that they, not the party officials or independent delegates, should select party nominees, he adds. Historian Michael Beschloss agrees. "By the 1960s, Americans are saying they think it's a bad thing to have nominees chosen in conventions," he says.

For better or worse, the role of the party convention "has been transformed from a deliberative body to a ratifying body," says James Davis, author of "National Conventions In An Age of Reform." Asked how they feel about their lesser role at the 2000 convention compared to conventions in prior decades, arriving delegates who were asked said they preferred the old system. But all agreed that the increase in state primaries was a healthy development even though that is the direct cause of their diminished role.

It is important to stress, however, that contested conventions may not totally be a thing of the past. "There might still be brokered conventions in the future," says historian Beschloss, "if the primary process results in a number of candidates not having enough votes to win at the convention." But unless that occurs, he says, modern conventions will likely continue "to be largely harmonious events dedicated to showcasing the nominees who already have been

chosen in the primaries."

Voters who remember the 1960 convention, which was the fourth to be televised, may regret the passing of platform fights and contested nominations that made for exciting conventions and riveting television. But party regulars seem more at ease with the 2000-style convention. "The voters may want to watch a knock-out, drag-out convention," said one delegate. "But then, when they get too fractious, they hold that against you at the ballot box in the general election."