The <i> P</i> in GOP Means Party for Visitors to The Big Easy

The jellybeans, almonds, raisins, melons, chips, salsa and some of the wine were free.

But the orange juice was $32 a gallon, the fleet of 20 buses was $76,000 for the week and it cost $130 each for two Porta Potties for Vice President George Bush’s Wednesday morning rally with the California delegation.

These were the kinds of details that Don Willet of Irvine had to worry about last week.

For it was the task of Willet, a political consultant who took on the job of executive director of the California delegation, to take care of the 1,100-member entourage of delegates and alternates, honorary delegates and their spouses, children and friends who spent the week in New Orleans at the Republican National Convention.

To put it simply, Willet said early Friday morning as he tended to the last details of sending his charges back to California, his job was “to see they can go away from here with a hangover and a smile.”

Willet and his wife, Jane, were in the lobby of the Sheraton, the headquarters for the delegation, arranging for luggage to be picked up and boarding bleary members of the delegation on buses bound for the airport. In what seemed like centuries before, the delegation had arrived there the previous Saturday to a cheering column of hotel employees.

Most of them had arrived aboard one of two chartered flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to be greeted at the gate by the Royal Jazz Band and several dozen smiling people who shouted “Welcome to New Orleans.” Huge glasses of a local rum drink called “Hurricane,” which resembles Hawaiian punch, were plunged into their hands as they were boarded directly onto the buses that took them to the Sheraton. Their luggage, meanwhile, had been spirited away, to appear magically at their hotel rooms shortly thereafter.

And the rest of the week was like that. From the sunset dinner and river boat

Gus Owen of Capistrano Beach, an alternate delegate, said after Bush’s acceptance speech marked the end of the political events, that the convention was one of the best organized and most fun of any he had ever attended.

race Saturday night (cost: $40,000); to the rally for Bush and his newly chosen running mate, Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle ($10,000); to the midnight buffet on Thursday ($17,000), the California delegation was treated to the best the convention had to offer.

The week’s events cost a total of about $330,000, Willet said, most of which was financed by a $220-per-person delegation fee. But Gov. George Deukmejian, who is chairman of the delegation and who was its official host, also raised about $100,000 from local sponsors to make sure that the fees would be kept low. California donors were also found for the raisins, almonds and other snacks provided during the week.

In between the social events, the delegation was bused to the nearby Superdome, where the convention took place. Gus Owen of Capistrano Beach, an alternate delegate, said Thursday after Bush’s acceptance speech marked the end of the political events, that the convention was one of the best organized and most fun of any he had ever attended.

Standing on a chair, viewing the balloon and confetti debris from a celebration that had ended moments before, Owen was not complaining when he added, “There have been so many social things, it’s been difficult to spend time on the (convention) floor.”

Most of those in the delegation headed back to the hotel for the final midnight buffet. Some of them were spotted hours later in the jazz clubs that abound in the French Quarter near the Sheraton. A few ended up at 5 a.m. at the Cafe du Monde to drink strong chicory coffee (no wimpy decaffeinated served) and munch on beignets, warm doughnut-like squares sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Some of them never got any sleep, said Willet, who was in the Sheraton lobby at the same hour, making sure everyone was taken care of. “They said they were going to have to get up in a couple of hours, so why go to bed?” he said.