The Second Time Around

WASHINGTON —  The mood here on the eve of inauguration is not quite malaise, but something less than exuberance.

When Bill Clinton first blew into town four years ago, Democratic activist Bob Neuman remembers how friends across the country were clamoring to scrounge up inaugural, ball or gala tickets. He was flooded with requests.

This time two people called.

“The difference is certainly palpable,” Neuman notes wryly. “It is my sage observation that the Democrats don’t know how to do a second inaugural. We haven’t had an opportunity to do it since World War II.”

And they weren’t so hot even then, what with the Depression and war. Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed on his first inaugural bash and canceled the next three. Democrats have a serious protocol deficiency for second swearing-in celebrations. They have to go back to party animal Woodrow Wilson.

Of course, Woodrow never entertained Barbra Streisand, who, incidentally, led a retinue of Tinseltown types to the last inaugural but won’t show for this one. Her representative denies this, but gossip columnists wag that it’s because Clinton won’t let her share a room in the White House with her boyfriend, James Brolin.

Not that elaborate preparations aren’t in progress for this 53rd inaugural. Cattle-car loads of celebrities and entertainers are being shipped into D.C. to enliven the Mall or the televised “53rd Presidential Inaugural Gala.” Sweeping themes about an “American Journey” and techno-futures have been conceived--morphed, more like it--out of Clinton’s “bridge to the 21st century” campaign slogan.

People who are promoting this inaugural use terms such as “subdued,” “focused,” “introspective” and “educational.” Those hardly suggest the sort of celebration likely to trigger a good, old-fashioned conga line through a blizzard of confetti. Thank God, at least, for the sounds of Squirrel Nut Zippers at Rock the Vote’s Red Sage bash.

“As we sit at the dawn of the 21st century,” inaugural spokesman Michael Gordon (actually) said recently, “now is the time for us to take a look at the journey America has taken and take a look at the strength and the spirit and the community that has allowed us to persevere.”

The 1992 inaugural had some stuff like that too: a symbolic bus ride for Clinton / Gore from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to Washington. But it was mere window dressing to the real business at hand: passing out the lampshades and blowing off serious steam after 12 years in the presidential wilderness. Everybody had their own bash, from Native Americans and the homeless to veterans and vegetarians. Maybe 1% of the hotel rooms were vacant in all of D.C. in 1992, fewer than 300 rooms.

This week there were still 3,000 vacancies for inaugural weekend. As of a few days ago, that included the priciest rooms in town: three President’s Suites at the Grand Hyatt Washington, where no one evidently will pay $53,000 for four nights and amenities that include limousine service, a custom-designed replica of Jackie Kennedy’s inaugural gown and a personal cameraman to film while you boogie on the ballroom floor.

(Not that excess is dead. A Texas couple ponied up 30 grand for four nights at the Ritz-Carlton across town on Embassy Row, with use of a Rolls, 24-hour butler, seven-headed shower stall, Jacuzzi, champagne, Beluga caviar and, each day, milk chocolate cast in the shape of a bridge to you-know-what.)

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“The inaugural of the second term doesn’t have the cachet nor the excitement of the first term,” says Sally Quinn, author, journalist and wife of former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee. “It’s the same guy and the same people and the same everything. So it’s sort of anticlimactic.”

For her part, Quinn mourns another passing nuance of the inaugural: ballroom Brahmans. At the current rate of ballroom inflation--from two official balls for Dwight Eisenhower, five for Kennedy and Johnson, nine and then 10 for Reagan, 12 for Clinton’s first and an anticipated 14 on Monday--they’ll start including future tickets in boxes of Wheaties.

“I mean, it’s very exciting if there’s only one inaugural ball and there’s only 1,500 people in the room and you’re there. If there are 14 inaugural balls and they can fit 3,000 in [each] ballroom, how special does that make it?” Quinn says. “You lose exclusivity. Once you lose exclusivity, you lose the cachet.”

(Can you believe tickets are still available? [888] 888-1997!)

Presidential image-maker Michael K. Deaver, who was also chairman of Reagan’s second inauguration, suggests in a New York Times op-ed piece that Clinton chuck the balls and all the highfalutin imagery and start brainstorming with Congress first thing after being sworn in.

“Enough of the bells and whistles, Mr. President . . . there’s work to be done and little time to build the bridge to the 21st century,” Deaver says.

But inaugural historian Philip C. Brooks, formerly of the National Archives and a veteran of several inaugural committees both Republican and Democrat, says the event is the closest thing Americans have to a coronation. He says the note struck by this event can reverberate throughout the president’s tenure. “This is really a supreme moment in the political life of the state.”

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And, indeed, minions of the Presidential Inaugural Committee have worked hard to make it so, with the “American Journey” of Mall events. “Leading Americans” will be telling their stories in one pavilion, high-technology and a Millennium Schoolhouse will be the focus of other big tents.

“You know the president is really into those types of things,” says Morris Reid, co-director of Mall festivities, who says plans were borne directly from the sentiments of President and Mrs. Clinton.

“He is a real wonking person. This really came from him. He wanted to have people from all walks of life, celebrities, athletes, interesting people, tell their experiences,” Reid says. “First inaugurations are generally more of a party, festive atmosphere where there’s celebrations. This one is really more educational or family-oriented.”

And, uh, no fun?

“Learning can be fun,” Reid offers.

“I’ve been trying to tell my kids that for a long time,” muses Greg Schneiders, a Democratic pollster and former deputy director of communications for the Carter administration. “They don’t buy it.”

Schneiders isn’t so sure about where this inaugural is going but seems willing to cut Clinton some slack.

“[He’s] reaching a little bit more to be significant and historical and all of that,” Schneiders says. “And I suppose it’s in keeping with a president looking forward to his place in history--instead of looking forward to a good party.”