COLUMN LEFT/ TOM HAYDEN : What’s Become of Bill Clinton the Populist? : The President-elect cavorts in GOP enclaves, aping ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.’

The Clinton family’s weekend of fun and relaxation in Southern California was well-deserved, but it may not be too early to observe clues that the promise of Clinton populism may fade into facade.

Eyebrows were raised two weeks ago when it was announced that Clinton’s friends, TV producers Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason, were buying a beachfront home for the new President’s use, at a place called Loon Point in Summerland, just below wealthy Montecito. The Thomasons quickly clarified that this was not to be a Western White House and that they were only leasing the $8-million property, and that it would be their own home, at which they would entertain family and friends, including the Clintons.

The Thomasons showed considerable brilliance in projecting a populist, down-home image for Bill Clinton during the campaign. I thought it was quite moving, and many a hardened political operative was melted by the soft, new-age Clinton portrayed in the film the Thomasons made for the Democratic Convention.

But in crafting an image for themselves, the Thomasons seemed to be screening an episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” All Thanksgiving weekend, the public was treated to helicopter views of the mansion on the coast, interspersed with periodic TV leaks of the “surprise” birthday party for Harry Thomason that his wife and the Clintons threw at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.

The President-elect kept a schedule that was limited to Republican areas. He accepted jellybeans from Ronald Reagan in Century City and said that the two former foes now agreed on many things, including privacy from the snooping media. Minutes later, Clinton waded into an enthusiastic mob of shoppers at the Glendale Galleria, which, his advisers noted, had just the right Perot-leaning demographics.

The scene at the mall did testify to the powerful and positive expectations the public continues to have about the next President, especially when contrasted with George Bush’s disastrous December, 1991, Maryland mall appearance, when he bought some socks at J.C. Penney.

But what did it show of Clinton’s populism? Will it be a progressive alternative to Reagan or Perot, or will it be merely personal? So far, Clinton’s populism has shrunk to what handlers call “meet and greet” opportunities where the President-elect plows through several thousand well-wishers, a stand-up version of last summer’s bus ride through America. These images then are balanced with controlled ones of Clinton as average jogger or average golfer, a Yuppie-Bubba Man.

In a television-dominated society, this bonding through imagery may pass for populism. Obviously a new populist crusade cannot go door to door hoping to bypass the cameras. But even Ross Perot’s United We Stand organization knows that real populism means organizing state-by-state around concrete issues that disturb someone in power. Can any administration already in power really be populist, or is it inevitably too busy with protective public relations? Will the national Democratic Party become populist in its hour of victory, or consume itself in dividing he spoils?

It is too early to know. As a Clinton supporter, I hope for the best. There are still hints of a Clinton commitment to reform of lobbying and campaign-finance laws, even talk of a grass-roots effort for national health care. But it will take independent pressure to activate Clinton’s populist potential. The samurai populists who ran Clinton’s campaign have already returned to their consulting lairs, far from Loon Point.

The Clinton-Gore “new generation” transition has so far been comforting for the old mandarins of power from the corporate law firms who dominate the Clinton transition team, and who seem unfazed about populism or reform. For these privileged gentlemen, the images of luxury living from the Thomasons’ enclave must have been reassuring, the social frosting on the real cake of power, which they seem poised to cut.