'Fundraising is never pretty when it’s presented to the public.' Former Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA.

House freshman throws party – and GOP cringes

By: Kenneth P. Vogel and Marin Cogan
January 4, 2011 04:28 AM EST

With Republican leaders anxious to set an austere tone for their ascendance into the House majority this week, the lavish fundraiser scheduled for Tuesday night at a trendy Washington hotel to benefit a dozen GOP freshmen is not exactly the populist image leaders are anxious to project.

House Speaker-elect John Boehner, whose name was featured on the invitation, is nonetheless skipping the event at the W Hotel, where lobbyists, political action committee managers and others paying the $2,500 ticket price will be treated to a performance by country music star LeAnn Rimes (a $50,000 package includes a block of eight tickets and a “VIP suite” at the W). The office of incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor, another featured invitee, was non-committal Monday night when asked whether he’d attend.

“If incoming GOP freshmen were hoping to bring fiscal responsibility and ‘family values’ to Washington, they may have gotten off to an interesting start,” conservative blogger Matt Lewis noted, citing the event’s steep ticket prices, as well as Rimes’s confessed extra-marital affair and her recent appearance in a “Sexy Santa” outfit at a gay men’s chorus Christmas performance.

Tom Davis, a former Virginia congressman and NRCC chair, said the Rimes fundraiser “ought to be a winner” with PAC managers. Though he said “fundraising is never pretty when it’s presented to the public,” he added that Denham’s fundraising leadership “tells me this is a guy to watch. He saw his chances and he took it.”

~Among the Republicans who are members of America's New Majority and stand to benefit from the Rimes event are Scott Desjarlais (Tenn.), Steve Southerland (Fla.) and Renee Ellmers – all of whom had tea party support and signed the Contract From America – a set of tea party principles that pledges fealty to the Constitution and limited government.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/46999.html