For GOP, Yurpies Are Newest Wave of Party Followers

SANTA CLARA — In many ways, the reception for 150 young Republicans at the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel looked like just another cocktail party.

All over the hotel, where the California Republican Party was holding its spring convention, U.S. Senate candidates, Assembly candidates and county central committees were offering free drinks to kick off this gathering of the clan.

But this party, organized by Scott Hart, 29, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson’s district director for Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, was making history of sorts.

Hart, along with three other Republican activists, was holding this beer-and-wine reception Friday night to organize a new breed of Republicans that Hart called “Yurpies.” He suggested that his newly coined expression will describe a new kind of party faithful, the younger Republican professional.

Hart had mailed invitations to about 150 Republicans around the state--not party volunteers, but Republican political consultants and legislative aides who were all in their 20s and 30s.

There was no special organization or meeting place for these young professionals now, Hart said. “The idea is to build a membership list and have a dinner at least once a year . . . the idea is for all of us to attain Republican momentum.

“We want to avoid any infighting between Republicans representing opposing candidates and we want to create a forum where we can let our hair down,” he said.

Although Hart had talked enthusiastically about Yurpies, he and the others actually had given their new organization a more serious name: “The New Spinners.”

The name is a play on the name of an earlier generation’s political network, “The Wheelspinners,” founded in 1952 by veteran Republican political consultant Stuart Spencer of Newport Beach. “The Wheelspinners” was Spencer’s excuse for an annual party, his secretary, Nancy Clark, said.

“It is a party hosted by Stu Spencer for people dedicated to spinning their wheels for the Republican Party. It started out as a small gathering of people at Christmas and it has grown to 400 people a year,” Clark said.

There are no dues and no bylaws. Over the years, Spencer’s parties have become the place to see and be seen for Republicans, attracting not only student interns and volunteers but prospective candidates and party leaders like President Reagan and Gov. George Deukmejian.

In organizing a younger version of Spencer’s organization, Hart had called Clark and asked permission to use a variation of the name. Spencer agreed. “We think it’s cute,” Clark said.

A Beginning

Cute, maybe, but also the begining of something.

For several hours Friday night, Hart, Newport Beach political consultant Dave Ellis, 24, Republican volunteer Maryann Maloney, 26, and state Republican Party fund-raiser Sydney Wilson, 29, welcomed first a trickle, then a crowd of young men and women into their suite. As they came, Hart took their names for a mailing list.

“Did you ladies sign in?” he called out as five women trooped in about 10 p.m. “Everybody has to sign in.”

Some who came, like Mitch Wilk, 39, special assistant to Deukmejian, said they had been puzzled by “The New Spinners” invitation. But once the idea of a young Republican professional network was explained, Wilk said he liked it.

Peter Berzins, 23, a student at San Francisco State University, said Hart and his friends put on a good party but he was a little disappointed. “I thought there would be a band,” he said.

A couple of card-carrying Wheelspinners also stopped by.

Imitation Yuppies

“It’s a fraud. These guys are just Yuppie imitations,” said Mike Neal, 43, an executive assistant for Assemblyman Robert W. Naylor (R-Menlo Park). Still, Neal conceded about this younger version of the Wheelspinners, “The girls are prettier.”

Added Dana Reed, a Newport Beach attorney and Republican activist: “This is embryonic compared to Stuart Spencer. Spencer gets governors and senators at his parties. But I imagine eventually these guys will do the same thing.”

Certainly “The New Spinners” organizers are hoping to. As the crowd thinned, Hart looked at his sign-in list. The group would be sending everybody a letter, he said.

If the party was almost over, Hart was still pleased with the turnout.

He surveyed a dozen young Republicans still talking and drinking beer in his suite. “Look at all the folks we have in here,” Hart said. “Look at all the Yurpies.”