A visit from the other John

JOSEPH N. BELL

The Democrats got the jump in Orange County in the “Race To the White

House” by running vice-presidential candidate John Edwards past 400

well-heeled party loyalists Saturday at that hangout for rich

Republicans, the Balboa Bay Club.

And I stopped by for a look, disguised as a journalist.

The look was brief and expensive for attendees, who had to kick in

at least $1,000 for a chance to break bread with the exuberant half

of the Kerry/Edwards team. Turned out that those who contributed

$10,000 or more got to press flesh with the candidate for a half-hour

in a private room before he showed up an hour-and- a-half late in the

main room for some 15 minutes of passionate campaign rhetoric.

And then he was gone, off we were told to do the same thing in

Florida. No more time for the breaking of bread in Newport Beach.

That’s the way it went when I was covering national political

campaigns many years ago. The candidates were always late; local

party functionaries always tried to occupy a restive crowd with

excuses, bad jokes and campaign songs; and when the wait became

almost intolerable, the candidate would suddenly burst in, saving the

day.

Maybe they planned it that way, I don’t know. But when it was

announced Saturday that Edwards was indeed on his way, the crowd that

was buzzing a second earlier hushed in expectation, and he was

greeted almost as if it were a coronation.

What we saw in the brief time he was before us was the

anti-Cheney.

None of the dark, brooding, deliberate, undemonstrative, spare

tough talk projected by the current vice-president. Edwards, wearing

an open shirt and jacket, looks younger than his 51 years. He talks

with passion and frequent gestures, in full command and without

notes, in a soft Southern accent. He was lively, animated and

frequently blunt.

Although he made his familiar point of the growing distance

between the haves and the have-nots in our society -- Edwards’ “two

Americas” -- he drew a laugh by acknowledging that even an audience

of Democrats was part of the “other America” in Newport Beach.

He spoke and gestured and paced as if he were summing up his case

for a client before a jury, and it was easy to see how he got rich

doing just that.

There was a good deal of talk about the bonding of Edwards and

Kerry in a “common set of values,” and Edwards stressed the

leadership demonstrated in Kerry’s decorated military service. Two

loud-applause lines were: “the most important thing for us is not to

talk but to listen” and “no American will ever again be sent to war

needlessly in a Kerry administration.”

Perhaps 50 demonstrators stood across the street from the Bay Club

waving such placards as “Cheney could be a REAL president.” I wasn’t

sure what they were protesting -- probably just the effrontery of a

Democratic candidate for high office appearing in Newport Beach. I

had to wait several times in the turn lane so I was able to judge the

number of cars that honked approval.

By my count, about two thirds of the drivers passing by were soul

mates of the protesters.

Matters got a little dicey when it was over.

Some 400 Democrats and a handful of Republicans who happened to be

sitting around the club hit the parking attendants like a tidal wave,

only to be stopped at the door by security. Former Gov. Gray Davis

was standing beside me and patted me on the shoulder, apparently a

reflex move from his days of running for office.

There were police cars and motorcycle cops standing by to escort

Edwards, who was apparently delayed in the parking lot. So we waited

some more. A lot more. Then he was off to Florida, and we could

settle back to await the next campaign incursion.

*

I’ve said this before -- and I’ll likely feel the need to say it

again -- that I don’t write the headlines for my column. They are

written by an editor on the copy desk under the stress of an imminent

deadline and the desire to be creative. I get enough heat for the

sins I really commit without taking the heat for headlines I didn’t

write.

All this comes up because of a recent column in which I supported

the decision of the UC Irvine chancellor to allow Muslim students to

wear stoles at their graduation ceremony.

The headline said: “The stoles, like other outrages at UC Irvine,

will pass.”

This suggests that I considered the stoles an “outrage,” as

several readers pointed out to me. For the record, my point,

apparently not as clear as I thought, was precisely the opposite.

*

One of the issues on the agenda of the Orange County Board of

Supervisors at its meeting today is a proposed parking lot at the

entrance of what used to be Santa Ana Heights and is now a part of

Newport Beach. A developer who is putting up a commercial building

nearby wants to use an adjacent lot to park cars.

Those of us who live in what is now called Bayview Heights want to

create a small park on this space appropriate to the main entrance of

our bucolic community.

Since the land in question belongs to the county, the Supervisors

will have to make this call.

The Newport Beach City Council is already on record supporting a

park. So are the residents. It is now up to the supervisors to throw

yet another bone to the developers or listen to the ardent wishes of

the people who live there.

Hopefully, this time, they’ll listen to the people.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.