Was It Something We Said?

The boat picture hurt the most. There they were, on front pages everywhere, the President and Hillary, Jackie O. and Ted, tooling along together in a yacht off Martha’s Vineyard. To most of the nation, I suspect, the underlying political message of this profile in leisure was one of torches passed and all that. See the Kennedys frolicking in traditional Kennedy fashion. See the Clintons frolicking in traditional Kennedy fashion.

O Camelot! O Photo Op!

Way out here, however, on the edge of America’s other shining sea, in a little town of coffee shops and antique stores situated just south of Santa Barbara, the yacht shot and related dispatches from the Clintons’ holiday among Democratic bluebloods sent an altogether different message. To borrow from a familiar postcard greeting, what the Clintons seemed to be telling Summerland and, by extension, all of California, was this:

Having a Great Time. And You Are Not.

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Summerland should ring a bell. In the post-election glow, when for reasons of political debt and personal friendship the new President was expected to take special interest in California, Summerland seemed destined to become, as the T-shirts proclaimed, “the unofficial Western White House Retreat.” Two of Clinton’s closest friends, Hollywood producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, had rented a secluded mansion on the beach here. The Thomasons did not encourage talk of a Western White House, but they also let it be known that they would not be surprised if the First Family dropped by from time to time.

And so the fires of expectation were lit. Saxophones were put at the ready. Welcome banners were ordered. Summerlanders debated among themselves where the presidential helicopters might land, or how best to entertain Chelsea, and what to do with all the new money they’d make catering to a marooned press corps. In late November, the President-elect and family came out for a few days. There are photographs all over town to prove it. This visit of visits only inspired more giddiness.

“For a while,” said a restaurant manager, “there were rumors flying around all the time. People were saying: ‘When are they coming back next? Is it going to be this weekend or next weekend?’ ”

These rumors, alas, proved to be unfounded. With the exception of one brief, no-publicity visit by Hillary and daughter, the First Family has not returned. Summerland has not become the next Kennebunkport, the new San Clemente. It is just one more California town getting pounded by the recession, and the great expectations of November are remembered ruefully now as a passing fit of naivete. Only one in four Californians approves of Clinton’s job performance, an all-time low, and--visit or no visit--the unpopularity extends to Summerland.

“The people here have soured on him,” resident John Sullivan said of Clinton. “Mainly, I think, it’s the tax proposal, and also the economy, and maybe the base closings. I think there was some false optimism in the beginning. We all were excited about change. And also, a lot of people here thought he would be coming out on a regular basis. That hasn’t happened, so the disappointment probably is magnified a bit.”

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While Summerland has soured on Clinton, it seems clear Clinton hardly is busting his jeans to fly west and go native. The state that was to have been the cornerstone of a reelection campaign, at present, must feel more like a rock around the presidential neck. Every time he comes here, it’s bad news. Snotty press about his zeal for Hollywood glamour, allowing the Thomasons great access, consulting with Barbra and the like. Base closings. Recession. Haircuts on the LAX Tarmac. Keep this up and it’ll soon be bye-bye California connection, like, for sure.

It is said that the Clintons chose carefully when picking a site for their first “real vacation” in many years. Vail was considered, along with Jackson Hole and the North Carolina shore. The unofficial Western White House Retreat did not make the cut. “My guess,” said one White House aide, “is that they were a little gun-shy about going there because of all the publicity it would create, the stuff about the Thomasons and all that, all the bad ink.”

And so instead, the new kind of Democrat decided to take up with the old kind of Democrats on Martha’s Vineyard, where, to quote our own White House correspondent, “the silence you hear . . . is the sound of the President of the United States at play.” Out here in Summerland, where it’s been a slow summer for the tourist trade, where the presidential saxophone hangs unused on the burger joint wall, and where last week a big fine house on the ocean stood empty, that silence is a sound they know all too well.