Riordan, President Share Compliments on Ride to Airport

Here’s what Los Angeles’ Republican mayor got in his 20 minutes alone with the nation’s Democratic President on Friday:

Support for his gang-quelling efforts, a discussion of the Clinton Administration’s eleventh-hour rescue of the county’s public health system--and compliments on the neophyte politician’s improved media presence.

“We talked a little bit about how to handle the media, and he complimented me, said he thought I was doing better speaking to reporters, [especially on] television,” said Mayor Richard Riordan, who in his election campaign two years ago was known for awkward speeches and verbal gaffes.

Riding to Santa Monica Airport with President Clinton, Riordan briefed the chief executive on the countywide working group he pulled together this week after gang members fatally shot a 3-year-old girl when her family stumbled into gang territory.

“He thought our task force was tremendous,” Riordan said.

He said he also informed the President that city and county leaders will seek $2.5 million more in anti-crime legislation funds to operate a coordinated war on gangs.

“He was very encouraging but he didn’t commit” to giving the money, Riordan said.

The two also talked about the county’s financial crisis, which the Clinton Administration had just eased by announcing a $364-million rescue package to keep public hospitals and clinics open.

“I complimented him on his leadership. I thought he had pointed the county in the right direction,” by giving officials time to overhaul the health system, Riordan said.

There was no talk of an endorsement in the presidential race, but Riordan said he offered a joke for the President to use on the campaign trail. It was about a psychiatrist who tries to reassure a paranoid politician that everybody in the whole world is not against him by saying, “Everybody in the whole world doesn’t know you.”