Product Placement for Edwards
Roll Call Staff
Someone flipping through the campaign finance reports of Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) was stunned — stunned! — to see an expenditure for $1,815.27 paid out to the “New York Hairspray Company” in February.
“That’s a lot of hair spray,” cracked the staffer for a rival presidential candidate.
Since Edwards is battling the image that he’s a pretty boy with a gravitas gap, HOH felt it was time to put some tough questions to spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri.
But the hair care story didn’t hold up. It turns out that the entry in the Federal Election Commission reports was slightly misleading.
The Edwards campaign bought about 200 tickets from the “company” — as in the cast — of the Broadway musical “Hairspray” to bring some campaign donors to the show.
“Actually the Senator doesn’t use any product in his hair,” Palmieri said with a laugh. “I wish he would because then his hair wouldn’t flop in his eyes like it does.”
At early morning events, Edwards tends to show up with a sopping mane. “It’s literally dripping wet,” she said. “He’s not blow-dried, that’s for sure.”
In other vanity news, Senate GOP Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.) found an interesting way to pass the time while sitting in the presiding officer’s chair during Thursday’s big tax-cut debate.
Lawmakers find many ways to stay busy for the chore. In this case, Santorum was spotted autographing a stack of glamour shots of himself for his many fans from coast to coast.
Rayborn Meets Hastert. Paige Ralston, spokeswoman for Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), got engaged last week to a man who sounds like he hails from a rather famous political family.
But Jim Rayborn, who’s not aware of any direct connection to the late Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-Texas), makes his money in commercial real estate — not politics. And Ralston says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I don’t want Jim to work on Capitol Hill. I love that,” she said of their divergent careers. “His world is full of vastly different things.”
The House staffer is the daughter of retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, who is now at the Cohen Group.
And Rayborn does have at least one Capitol connection: His grandfather, William McGrath, was a Capitol Police officer who met his wife, Dee McGrath, while she was working as a Capitol tour guide.
The couple are planning a fall wedding in D.C. “Jim is the Martha Stewart, so less than 24 hours after the engagement he had the date and venue nailed down.” (At HOH’s prompting, she hastened to add that her future hubby is not like Stewart in any kind of insider-trading-allegation way.)
Rayborn proposed on the Speaker’s balcony, with its amazing view of the National Mall, last Wednesday night. Hastert and his wife, waiting in a nearby room, were on hand to pass along congratulations.
Rookie Mistake. An out-of-breath freshman Rep. Linda Sanchez (Calif.) showed up late for the Democratic Caucus meeting last Wednesday and tried to rush into Cannon House Office Building Room 345.
But Sanchez was stopped at the door because there was a problem: The Democrats were actually meeting in the basement of the Capitol. So she came very close to sneaking into the GOP Conference meeting.
“I understand I got busted for showing up and trying to spy on the Republicans,” Sanchez told HOH later in the day. “But the truth is I showed up and realized they didn’t have a game plan. So I left.”
Republicans, however, thought her decision to miss the early part of the Democratic Caucus meeting might have something to do with Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (N.Y.) recent comedy routine at a Democratic event.
“She was tired of hearing Anthony Weiner’s blue standup routine,” joked Jonathan Grella, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
When Political Dynasties Attack. Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) couldn’t resist a few good-natured jabs at Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) at Thursday night’s 10th Annual Morris K. Udall Awards.
The dinner, which was co-chaired by Roll Call’s Mort Kondracke, raised a whopping $710,000 for the Parkinson’s Action Network.
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Quietly hidden amid debates over which agency should house a consumer financial protection agency is a simple consumer financial protection proposal. It would safeguard Main Street residents from malpractice by people claiming to be financial planners. Read Full Article
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