President Clinton has symbolically "passed the baton" to the man he hopes will be his successor in the White House, Vice-President Al Gore, after a farewell speech here which had thousands of Democrats cheering and weeping.
As the President spoke on Monday night, police and protesters clashed outside the convention centre after a rock concert. There were about a dozen arrests after police fired rubber pellets and pepper spray at some of those at the concert who had tried to gain access to the centre.
The Rev Jesse Jackson, a speaker at the convention, was among those who accused the police of over-reacting and using "unnecessary brutality".
Delegates, unaware of what was going on outside, cheered and chanted "Thank you, Bill" as the President ended his 41-minute farewell address.
Earlier, the huge stadium gave Mrs Hillary Clinton a huge ovation when she recalled the highlights of her years as First Lady and paid warm tributes to Mr Gore and his wife, Tipper.
She also got in a strong plug for her Senate campaign in New York, saying that it would be up to the people there "to decide whether I'll have the privilege of serving them in the United States Senate".
Last night the convention was to hear tributes to President John F. Kennedy, who was nominated at the 1960 convention, the last time the Democrats met in Los Angeles. His brother, Senator Teddy Kennedy, was the main speaker. Caroline, the daughter of the assassinated president, was due to make her first-ever speech at a convention.
The President was modest yesterday about his speech, which was widely praised as a powerful defence of the record of himself and Mr Gore during their eightyear administration. It was seen as an effective rebuttal of Republican claims that they had "coasted" along and had little responsibility for the booming economy.
"I said what I wanted to say," Mr Clinton said on Air Force One as he flew to Monroe in Michigan to meet Mr Gore. "I hope it helped. Maybe it did. The main thing is I just wanted to thank the people."
Mr Gore, who is putting the finishing touches to tomorrow night's acceptance speech, said that yesterday's meeting with Mr Clinton in Michigan was "more important than most of the words" spoken.
"It's a handover, a passing of the torch," he added.
Mr Gore said that Mr Clinton had made a great speech. "I really appreciated the generous and kind words that he had about me," he said.
But Republicans, as expected, were less complimentary. Mr Ari Fleischer, spokesman for Governor George W. Bush, said: "Instead of passing a baton to Al Gore, Bill Clinton used it to beat his own drum. The Vice-President remains in Bill Clinton's shadow."
A new poll by the Los Angeles Times shows Mr Gore trailing Mr Bush among likely voters by 12 percentage points.
The No 2 man on the Democratic ticket, Senator Joseph Lieberman, arrived yesterday in Los Angeles. He will give his acceptance speech tonight.
Former Senator Bill Bradley, who opposed Mr Gore in the Democratic primaries in a sometimes bitter campaign, yesterday released his 359 delegates to the Vice-President in advance of his own speech urging support for the Gore-Lieberman ticket.
Senator Bradley was questioned in interviews about his comment on Mr Gore during the primaries: "Why should we believe you, that you will tell the truth as president, if you don't tell the truth as a candidate?"
Mr Bradley brushed the embarrassing questions aside, saying that he was going to tell the convention that "Al Gore is 100 times better than George W. Bush".