At Texas State Society’s Black Tie and Boots Ball about 12,000 people made it into the Marriot Wardman Park. If there was a power scene, it simmered somewhere well out of range of most revelers. When the president arrived, few guests had any idea he was in the building. Access to the upstairs ballrooms where he, the first lady, and their daughters went were closed off well before 9 p.m. After obtaining a wristband and a security check, hitting the coat check, and angling for a drink, it took deep reserves of party loyalty to attempt the trek to try to see anyone – let alone the president – on the main stage in the ballroom.

For us plebs, there was the Texas Fair and Market Place, a series of booths hawking Texiana. The Heritage Pie Company handed out samples of their delicious cobblers stuffed into ball jars. Cindy Reed Wilkins of Cin Chili & Co. served scoops of her spicy, satisfying stew. Open bars dotted the lobby and ballrooms, one of which was outfitted with a large buffet of fajitas and enchiladas. Decent cover bands and one excellent rock band imported from Austin – The Gourds – kept things lively. “I’m here to celebrate government – and the presidency,” said Lia Soupata of Atlanta.

Later that night at the Wyndham Washington hotel a handful of well-connected D.C. party-givers threw a bash for the soon-to-have-power set. This too proved to be an exercise in numbers, and the crowd – with an age range of about 25 to 35 years old – was a sodden mix of Capitol Hill staffers, campaign workers, and children of wealthy donors.

The headliner of the evening was Austin rocker Pat Green, but what will surely live on in Capitol Hill lore was the two-hour wait at the coat check. A shifting scrum that at its worst was 15 people deep crowded around two folding tables in the lobby. “We know you are tired. We know you want your coats. We’re trying,” one employee announced. “Step back!”

It didn’t do much good. A 3 a.m. the police were called in. One officer blew a whistle in a three-toot rhythm (more suited to a riot) to get people’s attention and demand that everyone move back.

Clayton Turner, a baby-faced 23-year-old from Alabama who earlier in the evening seemed a mild-mannered individual, took on a comic red-faced anger as he screamed at the guard: “Yes, I have a PROBLEM with this!”

New Yorker Bryan McCarthy, who organized the Communists for Kerry protests to balance out the Billionaires for Bush, took a cooler approach. “My strategy was to wait until they’ve all cleared out,” he said. Finally, at about 4 a.m., the coat checkers gave up and pushed the tables to the side and let the guests find their own coats.

By this time in the evening, few remembered the point of all the revelry. But the straw cowboy hats – handed out at the Black Tie and Boots event and still on the heads of those in the lengthy cab line – gave it all away. Texas was in the house and very much in the White House.