Taking Some New Soundings on the Social Clout Meter
Heard about the trickle-down theory of society? It has to do with who’s in power and who’s not.
After 12 years of ruling Orange County’s social class, Republicans have descended a rung on the society ladder. President Clinton is in, and suddenly, so are Orange County Democrats (and a few Republicans for Clinton. They’re really in.)
People who have social clout--power, authority--are fun to watch. They’re the ones who confer status on a party by just having their name on the guest list. They’re the ones who frequently are “honorary” chairman or chairwoman of a gala. Their names sell tickets, fill up a ballroom. And they’re the ones whose cars are parked up front at the bistro, who sit at the A-tables, whose very presence is cause for a buzz.
More hallmarks of people with clout:
* Their phone calls are returned within 10 minutes.
* They’re introduced by the emcee at a mega-gala.
* They don’t need name tags.
* People hand them their business cards, not the other way around.
* They have pictures of themselves with the powers-that-be on their office desks and home pianos.
* Their Rolodexes include at least one telephone number of a governor, senator or White House secretary.
* They know if you don’t have clout.
* They share reminiscences of time spent with people you’ve only heard about.
* They get Christmas cards from Sacramento and/or Washington.
People with clout can be fueled by their own power--the ideal--or borrow some. It isn’t unheard of, for example, for a person with clout to be the partner of somebody with clout (clout-by-association), or a wife, husband or child. Even ex-wives and ex-husbands get a decent ride on the clout-tails of their former spouses.
Watch a person with clout enter a room. In seconds, they’re surrounded like the Good Humor Man on the Fourth of July. Strangers introduce themselves, new friends reintroduce themselves and friends, well, they can keep their distance. After all, they had lunch with them that day.
Watch them at a dinner party table. They’re so busy answering questions that they’re picking at their field-greens when everyone else is diving into their bananas flambe. They’ve usually just experienced something so interesting--a power trip, perhaps--that everybody wants to hear about it.
Who’s got clout? Republican developer Kathryn Thompson had it (she was a donor of $100,000 to the Bush campaign in 1988) and still does (she invited Clinton to breakfast in Orange County when his name was a long way from being a household word.) Western Digital CEO Roger Johnson and his wife, Janice, had it and still do. Former buddies of the Reagans and supporters of the Bushes (the first time around), they waved pompons for the Clintons. Janice co-chaired an Orange County luncheon for Hillary Clinton.
Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder, also a Republican, suddenly has a megadose of it--with her chairwomanship of the Board of Supervisors and her campaigning for Clinton.
Others include Richard O’Neill, former chairman of the California and Orange County Democratic Party; Howard Adler, current chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party; Huntington Beach councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson; Bob Nelson, the only Republican on Clinton’s transition team; Democratic activist Audrey Redfearn and Orange County Judge David Carter.
During the coming years these people and others like them will wield the lion’s share of political and social influence in Orange County. And it will trickle down through their ranks, endowing all who are close to them with a sphere of influence.
In four years, who knows? Maybe the Republicans will again grab the baton; there may even be Democrats-for-Kemp. And we’ll begin all over again.