California’s Inaugural-- From Kiwis to Neckties

What it came down to, really, was a question of kiwi.

Fitting, really, to have the search for style in Sacramento rest on an agricultural product. Fitting, since this capital city traditionally sits like a Midwest outcropping, above slick San Francisco and sprawling Los Angeles--not a bumpkin, but a country cousin in last year’s suit.

This style quest ranged over the parties accompanying the inaugural festivities--that formal time when the governor and seemingly any official with a state flag and higher ambition gets to entertain supporters, givers, party faithful and Statehouse familiars.

Beginning Sunday night, the parties were as varied as the menu at Frank Fats, this city’s most famous hangout. Fund-raisers with fancy food were served up right alongside cookies and coffee from Styrofoam cups.

The kiwi? Ah, yes. This once-trendy food showed up both at the afternoon reception at the old Odd Fellows Hall (honoring state Treasurer Jesse Unruh) and at the private, $650-a-head Rotunda reception preceding the Inaugural Ball at the Community Center for Gov. George Deukmejian. Kiwi, almost a cliche of nouvelle cuisine, was indeed a highlight of the Sacto cuisine.

At the Deukmejian party, the kiwi lay pristine and peeled--a perfect reflection of the well-orchestrated upscale event. And quite a change from the last inaugural, when high-paying supporters crushed in a low-ceiling hotel ballroom. Now the second-term Republican governor and his wife, Gloria, received about 1,300 special guests. Despite the average 20-minute receiving line wait--in unseasonably moderate weather and down a long Capitol hallway--the closed-to-the-press-unless-armed-with-somebody’s-spare-ticket party was as smooth as a creme brulee.

Unruh’s reception had more than a modicum of both sentiment--the four-term Democratic state treasurer has been suffering from cancer--and style. Here again, kiwi. And pea pods filled with some white stuff. Only this time, the caterer had decided to leave the coat on the kiwi, a fruit once termed “the suede potato.”

If kiwi--dressed or undressed--is not a fitting standard of style, perhaps the measure should be double-breasted suits--quick becoming standard attire here, with most wearers looking a plumper reflection of that dandy, Speaker Willie Brown. There were other inaugural accoutrements--like the special white-satin name tags proclaiming the wearer part of “commemorating the Inauguration of California State Controller the Honorable Gray Davis” or the embossed cocktail napkins carrying Unruh’s name and the number 5,589,633--his “probably” record-setting vote tally.

Or it could be money. Money passes for style quite nicely. Especially in political circles.

Are these your financial supporters, Sen. Alan Cranston was asked at the Davis fund-raiser.

“If not, they will be,” the saucy septuagenarian said.

Real-estate developer Jeff Berger, who would prefer “not to have his name in print” but was happy to identify himself as a friend of former Gov. Jerry Brown, had pulled together the $70,000 event with folks like Beverly Hill’s Al and Marilyn Gersten, putting a dent in Davis’ campaign debt of about $700,000. Controller-elect Davis played the inaugural for all he could, even having temporary stationery made up for his temporary title.

Described by other Democrats as their party’s top fund-raiser and reportedly already running hard for the 1990 gubernatorial election, Davis never stopped working the party.

Davis’ clever thunder was mildly stolen by Cranston, himself a former controller, who read a letter he had received at his election in 1960, asking “What do you control?” Written by cartoonist Lee Falk, the letter said the office was perfect for California, where a bunch of people had apparently sat around and said, “Hey, let’s have a controller.” And only then asked, “What will he do?”

The big inauguration and party for Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp was to be held Monday afternoon in L.A. The morning ceremony here was simple--in the Lincoln Plaza Auditorium and followed by cookies and coffee. Again, a former officeholder almost stole the show--Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk, who announced that in the November election, “My opponent was named ‘no,’ and (Van de Kamp’s) was named ‘who.’ ”

Afterward, the Democratic attorney general, complimented on his necktie, whipped it around to show that it was his “annual purchase” from the classy Paul Talbot shop in Carmel. Hey, Jack Flanagan (the Orange County Republican political operative) flipped his tie over--and it too was from Paul Talbot. Perhaps ties are the arbiters of style of Sacramento?

A third fellow, political consultant Joe Cerrell, embarrassedly pointed out that his tie was probably the cheap kind that a department store didn’t bother to label.

Ties again at lunch, as Speaker Willie Brown--in a fancy brocade number he picked up on his holiday trip to France--looked at a newspaper advertisement for ties passed to him by Majority Leader Mike Roos. But wait? A discount store? No, no. Not for the speaker.

Brown had sped though four morning inaugurals--making it to the ceremonies for Van de Kamp, Davis, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Deukmejian. Now, with Roos, Assembly members Maxine Waters and Steve Peace, Coastal Commissioner David Malcolm and others, Brown held court at Frank Fats. He related that he had “chickened out,” and had eschewed his fur coat for a more modest cloth one at the Duke’s outside inauguration.

Interrupted first by a television reporter with full crew, Brown bolted to a nearby table of enthusiastic Republican women.

There, Instamatics in hand, the GOP faithful snapped pictures of each other with the Speaker. Maybe style is table-hopping at Frank Fats--but then, maybe that’s an unfair measure since the governor reportedly has only been in the restaurant once in four years.

Newlywed Chris Unruh flashed her pave diamond ring. “I know it’s tacky. No, no, not the ring. Showing it, but I am so excited.”

The reception for her new husband was mobbed, with a bipartisan crowd that included outgoing State Democratic Chair Betty Smith, supposedly soon-to-be-incoming chair Peter Kelly, Assemblyman John Vasconcellos, along with Deukmejian’s chief of staff Steven Merksamer.

Unruh worked through the crowd, being greeted more warmly than is the usual at such political events. But then, as he had told his friends following his inaugural, “I just can’t tell you how much I love this job and how long I intend to hold it.”

So style in Sacramento might just be getting the chance to be surrounded by friends.

“I will pay easily what it’s worth--and right now they owe me.”

Speaker Brown and his legislative cohorts were non-paying guests at the private $650-a-person Rotunda reception. But the Speaker did have on white-tie-and-tails (with a white pique shirt and vest) among the black-tie crowd.

Those showing up a little early had to wait only a short time in the reception line--but then had the surprise of getting to shake hands not with the governor and first lady but with Inaugural Chair Karl Samuelian.

When the First Couple showed up, the line slowed. Among those patiently waiting to shake hands were Gloria and Glen Holden, Nancy and Sid Peterson, Paul and Dorothy Hebner.

Bars and buffets were set up in the hallways leading into the Rotunda, and chefs carved turkey while cheeses and nut bread and the kiwi stood ready.

“How about a Diet Coke?” one bartender was asked. Sorry, no diet drinks.

There were also no diet drinks at the Davis fund-raiser, the Unruh party--and there would be no diet drinks at the massive Inaugural Ball itself. There, in fact, the bars with alcoholic fare and caloric colas were interspersed with bars serving up hot-fudge sundaes. (The governor is a well-known ice cream fanatic.)

Maybe style in Sacramento is to have a hot-fudge sundae--or anything you want--with no regrets.

Leo McCarthy held his own Inaugural Ball, at the Crocker Museum of Art. And, in fact, McCarthy proved quite the ballgoer, gliding around the dance floor with wife Jackie.

There was no charge for the McCarthy party--and in fact, the party favor was a certificate for a videotape of McCarthy’s inaugural ceremony.

His party was free, McCarthy said, because the guests “gave so generously earlier. Not just cash contributors--but those who gave hundreds of hours.” Those gathered, like San Francisco’s Lia Belli and AFL-CIO chief Jack Henning, seemed to be having a wonderful time.

Maybe style in Sacramento is having a political party with an emphasis on the party and not on the political.

Or, then again, maybe it’s kiwi.