Thursday, June 19, 2008

The President's Dinner

First, I apologize for not updating in a timely manner. The past few days have been the most chaotic and euphoric days of this journey. Allow me to explain...

Every year the National Republican Senatorial Committee, along with the National Republican Congressional Committee, put on a massive event called "The President's Dinner" for donors. It's a three day event that this year began with a BBQ on Tuesday night, Breakfast/Speakers/Lunch on Wednesday, along with a massive banquet featuring President George W. Bush Wednesday night, finishing up with a smaller event Thursday morning. Big donors fly in from across the country, Senators take time off to attend all these events. It's obviously a pretty big deal. The more you donate, the more baller your events are. For instance, those who donated the maximum $28,500 to the NRSC (our "Majority Makers") got a BBQ at former Senator/Law & Order actor/Presidential candidate Fred Thompson's house, breakfast and Q & A's panels with Senators on Wednesday, lunch with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (whom I may or may not be in love with), and then a photo-op with President Bush at the banquet. This is pretty much what you do when you're too rich to know what to do with all your money...

Unfortunately, I was not assigned to work with the baller donors (I'm still quite jealous of the interns who got to BBQ at Fred Thompson's house and have lunch with (future-VP) Bobby Jindal). Rather I worked with those who donate about $5,000 to the NRSC (our "Presidential Roundtable" members). These donors got a BBQ at our building Tuesday night, a small breakfast and Q & A session with some party officials, lunch with some Senators, then dinner with the President, but no photo-op. Not as cool. The message here: Give us more money and we'll let you meet cooler people!

So Tuesday night rolls along and my exact role is to "mingle with donors" at the BBQ. For those who don't know, mingling is something I excel at. I took this opportunity to walk around glad-handing the high rollers and actually talking to Senators, rather than just gazing at them from afar. Senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, John Thune of South Dakota, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. It's really cool seeing Senators in this setting; they're actually quite fun to be around. Senator Isakson referred to Thune as the "tall, good looking Senator," which will be my title whenever I make it to the Senate. Senator Wicker is quite possibly my new favorite Senator. He entered the building shouting "I HAVE ARRIVED TO ADD LUSTER TO THIS EVENT!" I'm planning on using that line whenever I enter a big room from now on.

Overall I had a great time at the BBQ. It was also great actually being able to make small talk with Senators and their staffs (though it was awkward because I am still a starry-eyed intern standing in awe of these individuals). As for the actual guests, only about 40 showed up to this event, which was nice because it was more intimate. Not gonna lie, some of these donors are crazy...literally. They got even more interesting when the bar opened up. It was fun mingling and talking to them none the less. My favorite couple was this cute, old Chinese husband and wife (the husband was wearing an all-white suit which I hope I can pull off one day) who, living up to all stereotypes, asked me to take pictures of them with anyone who seemed like they were important. In one instance they had me take a picture of them with Senator Thune, then asked me who it was they were standing next to. Yay for Asian tourists! Those were the highlights of Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning I was assigned to work at a "Tribe Breakfast," which was a gathering of Native American Tribal Chiefs, lobbyists, and Senators Murkowski of Alaska, Barrasso of Wyoming, Coburn of Oklahoma, and Burr of North Carolina. The breakfast was supposed to be a chance for Native Americans to voice their concerns with the Senators on the Indian Affairs Committee. I wasn't too excited to go at first, the event didn't really sound interesting, but it actually turned out to be one of the most fascinating things I've done here in D.C. It was really interesting to hear the Chiefs talk about issues that affect the Native American community and how they view their relationship with the federal government, and vice versa. A lot of the things they discussed I never would have imagined Native Americans caring about. This was definitely an eye-opening and educating event.

After that event I was sent back to the office, where I decided to sneak in on the Majority Makers' Senate Q & A Panel (and also get some free food). They had a representative from the McCain campaign talk about the election and some strategy, and then Senators Burr, DeMint, and Coburn talked about federal earmarks, which was also very fascinating to learn about.

All these small events climaxed that night at the exciting President's Dinner! About 3,500 people attended the event at the Washington Convention Center. It was definitely interesting to see the make-up of the Republican party. It was definitely an interesting cross-section of America. There were young, old, wealthy, cowboys, veterans, mullet-types, whites, blacks, Asians (yes, there are minorities in the Republican Party!). Adding to the experience were the Secret Service agents staking out the entire convention center at every possible location. Pure craziness.

The highlight of the evening, of course, was being able to see President Bush speak. He spoke about John McCain and the need to elect Republican Senators and Congressmen (hint, hint to donors: give us more $$). He's had a couple good lines in there; talked about his "veto pen" and that next year while we're at McCain's President's Dinner, he'll be down in Crawford watching the Rangers play. Being able to see him speak was probably one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Although I disagree with him on a lot of things, he is still the President of the United States, and I have a lot of respect for that office. Plus, how many times do you get to say that you saw the President speak at dinner???



I did some mingling after President Bush spoke. I ran into Senator Thune again and got a picture with him (again, I'm a star-struck intern). You be the judge and tell me if he's the "tall, good looking Senator."


Then saw Senator Olympia Snowe sitting at a nearby table (to refresh from the last post, I LOVE Olympia Snowe). Seizing the chance to talk to my Senatorial hero, I went up to her, told her how amazing I think she is, and then got a picture. She loved it. I'm tempted to have her sign the pic for me...


Finally, I ran into Roger Wicker and asked him if he "added luster to this event," to which he laughed and replied, "I always do!" Amazing.

On the whole, this was an AMAZING experience. Getting to meet cool people and especially getting to talk to Senators was a sweet thing to do. Of course, seeing the President speak was unreal as well. I really like working at these fundraisers. Walk around, shake some hands, smile, make small talk, eat, meet cool people...it's all stuff I'm good at and enjoy doing. I wouldn't mind doing this for a living. Get paid to talk and eat free food? Not a bad way to live.

The free food is definitely a HUGE bonus. Every event I went to had tons and tons of food. And this was pretty good stuff, too. Even at the actual dinner they let us sit and eat with the donors. I pretty much got a a $5,000 event for free! Not too shabby.

So that was my President's Dinner experience. I'm not going to lie, probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. Leave a comment if you want to hear more!

3 comments:

Cathy Jen said...

Yeah, I like to hear more. Keep on blogging. You are such a good writer and your blog is so funny. I really enjoy reading it. Mom

lizzo said...

j, i love that you're such a starstuck intern and that you're using your lin boldness to get pictures. LOVE IT. i'm sure they're loving you too!

lizzo said...

p.s. yes, he is tall and good-looking; and i hope that you use that wicker line OFTEN. holy cow, that's like something straight out of a will ferrell sketch.

seriously, how often does olympia snowe have young, teenage groupies? i'm sure she ate that up. ;)