THE BELL CURVE:

If you can get fired up over a late lunch or an early cocktail, they will be serving both at the Balboa Bay Club next Sunday.

The first service will be at 2 p.m., the second at 3:30. If cost is a consideration, the first sitting is the one for you. It runs $2,300. The tab for the 3:30 service is $28,500.

Both menus are the same. So is the entertainment, which will be provided by Barack Obama, who — as you may have heard — is running for president of the United States.

The fact that a Democrat running for high office would seek campaign funds in Newport-Mesa is a quite remarkable turn of events.

The money is assuredly here, but offering it up in support of a Democrat in these parts has long been regarded as heresy. But not any more, says Melahat Rafiei, local director of party affairs, who adds: “If they still think this is the most Republican county in the country, they’re in trouble.”

Numbers would seem to bear her out, especially recruitment.

In the last 16 months, according to Rafiei, Democrats have registered 39,000 new party members in Orange County to 3,000 for the Republicans. Admittedly the Republicans were holding a considerable head start, but the trend is shifting.

I felt that strongly at a meeting I attended a few weeks ago of a new organization of Democratic women, born in Newport Beach and growing robustly. Probably half of the three dozen members present raised their hands when I asked how many were still grieving over Hillary Clinton’s withdrawal. All but a few said they were soldiering on nevertheless at full tilt for Obama.

The way these events work is a study in laissez-faire capitalism. They are usually built around a dinner or more modest food and drink in a public place or a home. The larger contributors are always a much smaller group, and they schmooze with the candidate first, totally separate from the $2,300 second string. Enough time is given to this part of the program to permit personal conversations and clear connections.

Meanwhile, the smaller contributors are toying with their desserts and watching the doorway for a glimpse of the candidate’s arrival. He will linger there pressing flesh for however long his already late schedule allows and his energy lasts. It’s all pro-forma — the scripts seldom vary, only the take.

The Obama campaign is hoping to leave Newport Beach on Sunday with a million bucks — and then move on to repeat this process again and again. I’m not sure the Founding Fathers had this in mind when they created this country, but that’s how it evolved and what we’re stuck with.

One curious dispute that has emerged between the two parties is the access of the press to these fundraisers. For many years they were done in secrecy, especially the identity of the hosts and the amount of money contributed.

But in a show of more gumption than they have displayed in keeping other political feet to the fire, the press has demanded that these fundraisers be open to the public through media coverage — at the very least by a single pool reporter. Obama has taken a strong stand on this matter, and because McCain has generally closed fundraisers from public view, Obama has made this an issue.

So what ground rules have been laid down for the Bay Club function next Sunday? Will we know who showed up and how much they kicked in?

A day of phone calling while writing this column — starting in Newport Beach and ending with the national Obama headquarters in Chicago — didn’t turn up any Democratic official who could answer that question. Details, I was told, were not yet available. If the press is excluded, it will surely weaken an Obama talking point. So we’ll watch for it Sunday.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.