Party Politics Reigned at Bash

“I told Bill Press that if they gassed this place, the Democratic party would lose all its funds for the next 10 years,” said Richard Walden, president of Operation California.

The event was a 70th birthday party for Stanley K. Sheinbaum, a bearded, bow-tied, gray-haired eminence with a lot of friends. A former University of California regent and a card-carrying chair emeritus of the ACLU, among his many affiliations, Sheinbaum is known as a champion of human rights and politically liberal causes.

True to form, Tuesday night’s festivities inside a hangar at the Santa Monica Air Center were also a fund-raiser for Human Rights Watch, an organization Sheinbaum founded that monitors human rights practices of governments.

Preceded by a bevy of dancers, the birthday boy made a dashing (though shaky) entrance on a yellow World War II fighter plane. A number of guests commented that an airplane was an appropriate vehicle considering the amount of time Sheinbaum spends on planes in pursuit of his human rights activities. (Last week he met with Nelson Mandela in Geneva).

On hand were politicians, celebrities and political celebrities, from Daniel Ellsberg to Margaret Papandreou, Tom Hayden to Jane Fonda (sitting separately), former Gov. Jerry Brown to Norman Lear. Plus: Stanley’s wife, Betty; Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp; Jack Lemmon; Gregory Peck; Sydney Pollack; Mayor Tom Bradley; Cybill Shepherd; Danny Goldberg; Richard Dreyfuss; Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, and City Council members Ruth Galanter and Nate Holden; Victor Navasky, editor of the Nation, and Aryeh Neier, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Everyone who wasn’t famous was what someone described as being among the group of quiet, anonymous donors who keep liberal causes alive.

Observed by Norman Lear: “Wet people are here, people who hug easy and a lot. Dry people are flaky and brittle, and their bones fall off if your hug them. And this is a wet crowd. If you know Stanley a little, you know he’s a moist one.”

The conversation ran to post-primary politics and politicking, and included an outpouring of sympathy for Van de Kamp, who table-hopped relentlessly; Dianne Feinstein’s quota system; Jerry Brown’s eye on the Senate, and, looking into the future, who would be L.A.’s next mayor. “Everybody on the city council is running for mayor,” remarked someone knowingly.