Friend of Bill? No invite for you

IF YOU HAD to put your money on any Pennsylvania bigwig getting an invite to the Chelsea Clinton-Marc Mezvinsky political wedding of the new millennium tomorrow in upstate New York, it would have to be Gov. Rendell, right?

Rendell has been a friend of Bill Clinton's for 20 years, a defender to the death of Hillary Clinton during the down-and-dirty 2008 Pennsylvania primary, and a longtime mover in the state's Democratic circles with the former-congressperson parents of the groom, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and Ed Mezvinsky.

Once, Rendell even characterized the 42nd president as a kind of soul mate, telling Philadelphia magazine famously that "we both have big hearts, we both love junk food and have problems with our weight. And you can draw some other conclusions."

So, Rendell's a slam-dunk, right?

He's not going.

Rendell spokesman Gary Tuma confirmed that the wedding, in the picturesque Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck, was not on the governor's schedule, and said he assumed that meant he wasn't invited - although he confessed that he didn't raise the subject with his boss.

In a weird way, the exclusion of so many political superstars from such a politically charged wedding - the marriage of the only child of the ex-president and of the secretary of state who may still harbor White House aspirations - is uniquely American.

For centuries across Europe, weddings of such stature were regal state affairs, and much was on the line - from succession to a throne to the future of shaky diplomatic alliances.

But the Clinton-Mezvinsky nuptials are not so different from most U.S. upper-class weddings; the bride and groom - both in their early 30s and successful on Wall Street - reportedly called most of the shots on the guest list, estimated at 350 to 400 people.

The friends of the Clintons and the Mezvinskys of the Main Line who did get a coveted invitation are going to be the absolute closest of the close family friends - not people cashing in chits for past endorsements or for having raised millions in campaign cash.

In fact, even Hillary Clinton's boss, President Obama, will not be attending - no doubt reflecting the facts that his presence would steal some of the thunder away from the newly betrothed while adding even more security woes.

But, then, Obama doesn't have a long political history with the family as does Alan Kessler, the Center City attorney and longtime Democratic Party activist who raised money by the bucketful for Bill Clinton in Philadelphia in the 1990s and was Pennsylvania finance chairman for Hillary Clinton in 2008.

He's not invited, either - but he says he understands.

"I consider myself very close friends," Kessler said, "but I understand that at some point you draw the line for a wedding like that."

Kessler noted that he is aware of some longtime Clinton friends who'll be there in Rhinebeck tomorrow - such as Terry McAuliffe, a top fundraiser who became a close friend and adviser, and Doug Band, who runs Bill Clinton's foundation and other post-presidential projects.

Otherwise, the guest list for the wedding - which may be at the Astor Court estate in Rhinebeck, although even that has not been confirmed officially - is so secretive that even WikiLeaks would have a hard time getting its hands on it.

Reports in the local media and elsewhere initially suggested that some superstars might be making their way to Dutchess County - the likes of Oprah Winfrey or Steven Spielberg or, somewhat oddly, former British Prime Minister John Major. But many of these names have been debunked. Whatever truth is out there probably won't be known until the last limo leaves town Sunday.

Connected and well-known guests probably should be kept to a minimum, anyway, according to Kessler - who said that "this is [Bill Clinton's] family, this is his daughter - it shouldn't be a political thing."

Stephen Hess, who worked for several presidents beginning with Dwight Eisenhower, then became a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institute and once wrote a book about political etiquette, said the fact that neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton is now president made the wedding protocol less complicated.

"If this was a question of a state visit there would be a very established protocol," Hess said. "You would know exactly what you had to do - and if you didn't do it, it would be inappropriate."

On the other hand, other than the star power of the families, Hess speculated that the Clinton-Mezvinsky nuptials won't be so different from those of any other wealthy families holding a swank reception at an opulent rural estate. Except maybe for the 12-hour federal ban on all flights over Rhinebeck below 2,000 feet during the affair, announced Wednesday night.

"You don't have to invite the crown prince of Bhutan," said Hess. "In fact, you don't have to invite anybody that you don't want."

It wasn't always that way. Doug Wead, a longtime political aide who worked for President George H.W. Bush and who has authored several books on the White House, including the recent All the President's Children, said that in the early 1800s the new democracy hadn't established any traditions of its own for a presidential wedding.

It all came to a head in 1820, Wead explained, when the youngest of President James Monroe's two daughters, Maria, announced her engagement - and the first wedding ever in the White House. But her controlling and much older sister Eliza - the White House hostess because of their mother's illness - decided to make the ceremony a private affair, infuriating the diplomatic corps in Washington.

"It stiffened James Monroe's spine," said Wead of the fifth president's reaction to the diplomatic row, "and it may have even influenced the Monroe Doctrine, the aggressive foreign policy that then-president developed for Latin America."

Over U.S. history, there have been 22 weddings of children of sitting presidents - as well as ex-presidential offspring nuptials like this one - and a total of nine ceremonies that have taken place at the White House.

The differences in approaches have been as different as the presidents themselves. Consider Richard Nixon, whose two daughters were both married in the years following his 1968 election. Julie Nixon married David Eisenhower in a small private affair right before her dad's first inauguration, while Tricia Nixon's wedding to Edward Cox in 1971 was not only attended by a throng of hundreds of dignitaries, but broadcast on national TV.

Now, times have changed again - the Clintons seem less concerned about letting the rich and famous inside than with keeping the low-flying paparazzi out.