Events

The Gridiron Club has announced its Democratic speaker for this year’s dinner. It’s Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She’ll joins the dais with former GOP Presidential hopeful Rick Perry (R-Texas), who will be the GOP speaker for the event in March.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Conservatives down on their luck in the love department, fear no more. CPAC has just the event for you. The schedule for the largest annual gathering of conservatives includes a special forum this year for right-wing singles.

Guiding them through daring dating waters will be dating coach Wayne Elise, pictured at right, shirtless and holding a pair of tiny scissors. He has been hailed a pick-up artist and an escape artist (this doesn’t scare us at all). “Learn everything from how to avoid scaring away your own personal Dagny Taggart in the first five minutes of the conversation, to whether Tea Partiers and Occupiers can share something more than a dislike for bailouts,” the description for the event says. For the uniformed, Taggart is the protagonist in Ayn Rand‘s Atlas Shrugged.

The event will be held Thursday, Feb. 9 in the McKinley room at the Marriott.

 

Today at 2 p.m. there will be a trustees’ sale of former TV newsman Howard K. Smith‘s 4.39-acre home in Bethesda. The ad says the “property is believed to offer future townhome development opportunity.”

The auction is being held at the Circuit Court for Montgomery County at the Court House Door, 50 Maryland Ave., Rockville, Md.

The home is 7, 258 square feet and consists of six bedrooms and 5 1/2 baths.

Smith, a former foreign news correspondent for CBS and anchor and commentator for ABC, was known for his controversial ways. For example, from the Museum of Broadcast Communications: “Following the 1977 arrival of Roone Arledge as head of ABC News, Smith found himself being used less and less. In 1979, he resigned from ABC, denouncing Arledge’s evening newscast featuring Peter Jennings, Max Robinson, Frank Reynolds, and Barbara Walters as a ‘Punch and Judy Show.’” More on Smith… “In 1940 he joined United Press as their correspondent in London and Copenhagen, and in 1941 joined CBS news, where he replaced William Shirer as CBS’s Berlin correspondent. The last American correspondent to leave Berlin after war was declared, he reached safety in Switzerland with a manuscript that described conditions in Germany, which became the basis for his best selling book Last Train from Berlin.”

The reigning champion of the CPAC straw poll has decided not to attend this year. Rep. Ron Paul, who won the poll in 2010 and 2011, turned down a speaking slot at this year’s event to campaign in Maine, the Examiner reports.

Paul is the only remaining Republican candidate to decline the invitation, the rest will be there to kiss the ring of conservatism. But Paul has a better surrogate than most, his son Sen. Rand Paul, who will speak at the event.

The impact the lack of “The Ron” will have on his devotees, affectionately called “Paultards” by CPAC attendees, remains to be seen. But local stores are predicting a major impact on their bottom line, cutting their expected increase in aluminum foil and hat pattern sales by 75 percent.

In honor of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates‘ induction as William and Mary’s 24th Chancellor, CNN’s John King will broadcast his program from the college this Thursday. King will interview Gates, who graduated from William and Mary in 1965.

“We are delighted that ‘John King, USA,’ is coming to campus to broadcast live on the eve of our 319th birthday celebration,” said Director of University Relations Brian Whitson. “This will be great exposure for the College.”

The event marks Gates’ first interview on a national news outlet since he retired in summer 2011.

Find out more about the event on its Facebook event page.

Mr. Norah O’Donnell (aka husband Chef Geoff Tracy) is heading up the 14th Annual St. Judes Gourmet Gala on Feb. 21. It’s an annual gathering of Washington’s best chefs to raise money for the children’s hospital.

More than 40 local chefs will join the event, with each creating a special dish. Attendees will vote on their favorite dish at the end of the evening. “It’s an honor to share our talents at an event that will help St. Jude find answers to save the lives of countless children,” the canned Tracy says in a statement. “On a lighter note [because there is always a lighter note in stories like this] the gala presents the perfect setting for collaboration among some of the industry’s best and a friendly competition to produce the perfect dish.”

For the bargain price of $350, you could help eliminate childhood cancers with ingredients like locally raised essence of aromatic wild mushroom foam or whatever passes for fancy food these days. For tickets and more information, visit here.

 

 

Filing from the bar of Husk restaurant in the Holy City – this is Fishbowl Charleston. As the state prepares to vote in the GOP primary this Saturday, we trudged through the beautiful weather and fine dining to bring you a report from the front lines.

Our Thursday began with a slow start when the closest thing we could find to a D.C. celebrity was Bob Livingston, disgraced former Speaker-designate of the House, trolling radio row of the Southern Republic Leadership Council at the TD Arena. Once we left, we saw a blurry eyed John Roberts from Fox News entering the arena, presumably for J.C. Watts‘s speech to the Council. Walking back to the hotel, we spotted Perry Bacon, from the Grio in an animated phone conversation outside of iconic Charleston restaurant, Jestine’s Kitchen. Considering we saw a reporter named Bacon outside of a restaurant well known for it’s pork laden dishes, we were quite pleased with ourselves.

After an uneventful afternoon, we decided to spice things up with a Rick Santorum speech. Upon arriving, we saw pundit extraordinaire, Michael Barone. While chatting with him, we ALMOST missed the diminutive Lindsey Graham, on his way to fire up the DOZENS of people who had showed up to see the “Sweater Vest of Truth”, Santorum.

Oh, and Perry Bacon was THERE, too. Before Santorum began his speech, we were treated to the arrival of Herman Cain himself. We were tipped off when we saw THIS guy hanging around outside, cigarette firmly ensconced in his mouth, naturally.

That’s right, Mark Block is BACK. We asked him if he tires of posing with his now famous cigarettes. He says he’s “gotten used to it,” but one person in New York recently asked him to SIGN a cigarette butt. The most interesting part of the Mark Block story is that when we made our way into the arena, he sat down just a few seats away from Josh Kraushaar from National Journal. It wasn’t long ago that Block famously butchered the relationship of Kraushaar to Cain sexual harassment accuser KAREN Kraushaar in the news. Block claimed on Fox News that she was Josh’s mother. (They aren’t related at all.) We asked him about that incident when it happened.

Kraushaar even acknowledged the weirdness on Twitter.

 

Mark Block a couple rows back in crowd as Herman Cain readying to address audience. Still haven’t heard from him since the Hannity botch.

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 19, 2012

We settled into our seats in the arena, which wasn’t hard. The place was nearly empty. We’ll give a conservative estimate and say there were roughly 150 people there. Easily half were reporters. As we settled in, we noticed a loud rustling behind us and turned to spot 11 members of the Duggar family, from TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting, filing in to catch the Santorum address.

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Ribbons or no ribbons? She wants ribbons. Casual or ivory on ivory? No ivory. Navy blue and yellow or sage green? Undecided but leaning towards navy and yellow.

On Tuesday morning NBC “MTP” Executive Producer Betsy Fischer had a sit-down with two wedding planners at Baked & Wired, a Georgetown cafe. Her fiance, Politico‘s Senior Political Reporter Jonathan Martin was not present. He’s leaving the invitation details to Fischer.

When discussing yellows, the women grew finicky, weighing between “buttery” yellows versus “bright sunshiney” yellows. The shape of the card is also important — square, horizontal, vertical. Horizontal appeared to be the hit of the day. Fischer, dressed head to toe in black, didn’t appear to care about the particular hue of yellow.

FischMart is not doing save the date notices. Instead, invitations will be dispatched early. Fischer agreed with the planners that she wants it “classy but not frou frou.” The raspy-voiced planner with dishwater blond hair remarked, “It’s a destination wedding as close to DC as possible.” A refrain that Fischer reiterated throughout the meeting: “I just don’t want it to be formal.”

To that end, FischMart’s wedding will include a barbecue. The couple will also be making “an appearance” at breakfast the following day. Above all, Fischer wants things easy for guests. “I don’t want people to freelance on accommodations,” she said. The raspy voiced, overly loquacious woman broke into her thought, “Tennis, bike, pool…it’s a fun weekend retreat, escape from the city.” Fischer concluded, “It’s a family friendly place but I don’t want to be like, bring your nine kids.”

 

Not an overwhelming amount of advance timing here, but TNR is hosting a newsmakers program on technology tomorrow morning from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at George Washington University.

The Program: Newsmakers on Technology will explore the future of technology and information from a range of backgrounds and disciplines.  Top newsmakers will join The New Republic‘s senior editors to discuss the biggest challenges facing this ever-changing industry.

The Lineup
Dr. Edward W. Felten, Chief Technologist, FTC
Julius Genachowski, Chairman, FCC
Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
with Frank Foer, Editor-at-Large | Richard Just, Editor | Jeffrey Rosen, Legal Affairs Editor and Professor of Law at GW Law School

Details…Wednesday, January 18, 2012 George Washington University, The Grand Ballroom at the Marvin Center, 800 21st Street, NW, 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. – Registration and breakfast, 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. – Program, RSVP here.

About On the Record with TNR…
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It’s ugly time once again for NJ and Politico.

On Jan. 25 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. NJ, in conjunction with The Atlantic, will host a State of the Union debriefing at the National Press Club. The description: “Our interlocutors —James Bennet of The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein of National Journal, Jackie Calmes of the New York Times, and Major Garrett of National Journal in addition to our audience — will put Republican and Democratic Hill leadership in the hot seat to dissect the President’s address, assessing how President Obama’s case statement for the year will impact November’s outcomes.”

Meanwhile, on that very morning, Politico is also hosting a State of the Union debriefing. Theirs is being held at the W from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Politico‘s invitation doesn’t list their guests, but we have a feeling Mike Allen will be all over it. UPDATE: We checked in with Politico’s event staff. They’re not releasing their names just yet. Stay tuned…