country-club set

A 5-foot-7, 117-pound rail of a man who had grown up in extreme poverty in Puerto Rico, he was far removed from the blue-blood, country-club set that populated the tournament scene.

Think of nearly any Hollywood film about suburban teenagers, in which the good-looking spoiled brats of the country-club set get their comeuppance in the third act after reveling in all sorts of bad behavior.

Republicans did this not by abandoning Wall Street wheeler dealers, corporate titans and the country-club set, but by stoking the fears and adopting the cultural biases of folks in small towns and beleaguered industrial regions.

If Helms at times sounded more like the voice of the country-club set than of the good ol’ boys like C.P. who struggled daily to get by, there was good reason for that.

In the early years, they were as far from the private country-club set as you could get.