WASHINGTON – For 18 years, Jim Hewes has been dispensing drinks at the saloon known as the Round Robin a few hundred yards from the White House, and he can tell how you vote by the way you belly up to his mahogany bar.

“The Republicans are all flash,” Hewes said. “A guy comes up with five friends, they’ve all got their money out, they want their single malts or top-shelf vodkas, and they’re all buying.

“The Democrats know what they want, but no one orders for anyone else – ‘cause they don’t want to get stuck with the check.”

Washington, it’s a wonderful town. The Elephants are up and the Donkeys are down.

D.C. is a Blue city that rocks Red right now. Red meat. Red cocktails. Red sauce with the ribs and shrimp. Beer is out and martinis are waaayyy in.

With the pre-Inauguration in full swing, Washington is wall-to-wall with grand old parties and Republicans want the best of everything.

Some cities get conventions, the Olympics or the NFC championship game, but every four years Washington gets the Super Bowl of star-spangled schmoozing. With the Republicans in control, the city is more free-spending and freewheeling, recalling Reagan-era elegance with a heavy dose of Lone Star swagger.

The GOP brand is stamped with the help of special interests – the corporations and trade associations – which not only ponied up most of the $40 million cost of the inauguration itself, but also made sure the schedule was packed with business parties.

Politics is a contact sport, and the main event this month is Getting To Know You Better.

“It’s a major lobbyists’ feeding ground,” said Larry Noble, director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.

Pennsylvania Avenue, the parade route from the Capitol to the White House, is awash in cash. All of the big restaurants are booked Thursday for private parties – and the action is bipartisan.

“They have a party whoever wins,” said Kathy Kain, general manager of Signatures, a restaurant midway along the route. Signatures is booked for breakfast, lunch and dinner on Inauguration Day by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Signatures has a reputation as a Republican hangout because owner Jack Abramoff, an uber-lobbyist (less uber for being currently under Senate investigation) has close ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.

But as Kain said, “This is a special-interest-driven town. We do a lot of business in the bar – and a lot of business is done at the bar,” she said.

Restaurant owners can’t afford to take sides. “I’m Switzerland,” declared general manager Tommy Jacomo of Palm, usually a hangout for Democrats.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel has prepared for its GOP guests by stocking $44,000 worth of Maine lobster, $30,000 of caviar, $80,000 of prime Texas beef, and $20,000 of yellow roses.

Doormen are wearing Stetsons. They’re serving rattlesnake nachos in the grill and turndown pillows are adorned with a chocolate cowboy boot.

The new deluxe Mandarin Oriental Hotel is laying in Kobe beef, champagne and sushi.

“It’s not pigs in a blanket and carrot sticks,” spokeswoman Ellen Gale said.

The hotel is partnering with high-end Texas-based retailer Neiman Marcus.

“People want to get dressed up,” Gale said. “There’s a lot of ball gowns instead of cocktail dresses. Men are having tuxes custom-made or buying $4,500 models off the rack.”

Martin Garbisu, a tall, elegant maitre d’ who has been in Washington since the Reagan years, said the go-go GOPers are always in a hurry.

“It seems like they are all in a rush,” said Garbisu, who now presides over Charlie Palmer Steak, where the giant windows frame the Capitol dome. “I don’t know where they want to go. It’s push, push, push.”

Garbisu admits to nostalgia for the Clinton era, when the commander in chief himself was often seen at D.C. restaurants.

“I liked Bill Clinton very much,” Garbisu said. “George Bush looks very reserved, like he lives in a cocoon.”

Garbisu, it must be said, is French. As a professional, he’s apolitical.

“Republican money,” he grinned, “is as good as Democrat.”

The ultimate expression of Washington’s New Pragmatism is Cafe Milano, a Georgetown restaurant that succeeded the old Jockey Club (where Garbisu once presided as maitre d’) as the favored watering hole.

Since Milano opened on the eve of the Clinton era, both sides of the aisle have been courted by owner Franco Nuschese. Everyone from Democratic honcho Terry McAuliffe to Vice President Cheney comes in – sometimes on the same night – and everyone gets along.

“We’re very aggressive,” Nuschese said. “So we haven’t seen a change from Clinton to Bush.

“I hear from my colleagues in town that there’s been a shift. They felt the Clinton people were younger and would go out and entertain more,” he added, leaving unsaid that this was not a problem at his place.

The toughest ticket this week for visitors is the Black Tie and Boots Ball, a Texas-themed intimate gathering of 11,000 Friends of W.

But for many locals it is a party to avoid.

“People in D.C. don’t want to go to these cattle calls for 10,000 people,” said Frank Coleman, PR chief of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and a former Republican Senate staffer.

So where do the players on the outs go this week? Coleman said not all Democrats are going skiing or windsurfing.

In fact, the Mandarin’s Gale said some parties at her hotel had a definite Blue tinge.

“After all, they have to lay the groundwork for when they resume control,” she said. “Or talk about how to get along for the next four years.”

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(c) 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-01-18-05 2238EST

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