Gee, and wasn't George Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, et al the ( gasp ! ) elite ? Wasn't Ronald W. Reagan, movie star, governor, and president ... also one of the elite ?
The founders whom you name were the only ones allowed to vote. As the franchise has been extended, more people vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. Now, the political elites are whoever can find the most people who want something they don't have and promising to give it to them: George Bush, the Clintons, the Kennedys. Publicly subsidized education has given us Peter Singer and Cornel West. Fiat money, artificially cheap credit and other government distortions of the economy has given us Enron, Tyco, Global Crossings, etc.
In all these venues of course, one can still find thoughtful, industrious, moral people. However, the pernicious influence of democracy has resulted in an elite who, by and large, are midgets compared with the elites of the past.