The major DCCC donors were invited to a dinner party at the Italian Embassy in honor of Nancy Pelosi on the eve of her becoming the first Italian American speaker of the house. Some folks had asked about how the donors were celebrating, and we weren't asked to keep anything confidential, so here goes:
See below for the whole story.
First, traffic was backed up for a couple of blocks on Massachussets Avenue by the cars turning left on the embassy grounds. The last block or so was filled with protestors standing quitely, holding signs bearing anti-choice slogans, and questioning Congresswoman Pelosi's right to call herself Italian, or Catholic without being opposed to women having the right to choose abortion. A drive that would normally take a couple of minutes (Massachusetts Avenue from Dupong Circle to the Rock Creek Bridge) seemed to take over 20 minutes. After we finally got to the embassy grounds we entered a temporary tent in front of the main entrance where Italian military guards were x-raying bags, and checking everyone with metal detectors.
After we entered the main lobby of the embassy (a large atrium, surrounded by balconies from the upper floors of the building), there was a bar set up on one side, and sixty tables ten on the other side. After a while, some people started playing some triangles to signal people to sit down. Very few people sat down, and someone started making announcements. Everyone was assigned a table number, and then the tables had place cards directing people to specific seats. My wife and I had seats that we liked: facing the stage, but all the way to one side, so we could get up without blocking anyone else's view.
I don't think they ever got everyone to sit down, but eventually most people did, and started eating a cold seafood antipasti. My wife is a vegetarian, so she got a vegetable salad instead. At our table we were with Howard Dean, and some other people who had all been big Dean supporters when he was running for President back in 2003 and 2004. The other courses were lamb with rice and vegetables (the vegeterians got rice stuffed into peppers instead) and a desert with lots of fruit surrounding a decadent chocolate concoction.
We then got short speeches from Nancy Pelosi's brother, the ambasador from Italy, Paul Pelosi (Nancy's husband) spoke about how he and Nancy first met and their courtship. Finally the next speaker of the house: Nancy Pelosi. She sounded great. I would say she sounded like she was on top of the world, but that doesn't go far enough. The crowd was very friendly, and constantly stopping the speakers to applaud.
Van Hollen (the new DCCC chairperson) then spoke. He introduced some of the members of congress in the room. Most of the new leadership was there. Some retired members (like Pat Schroder) and a few senators (a lot of people were shaking hands with Barak Obama).
He then intoduced the entertainment: James Taylor, and Tony Bennet who each sang a few numbers for us.
The sixty tables of ten imply that there were six hundred people there, but many were with spouses, so it was approximately 300 couples, and there were quite a few non donors (many Pelosi relatives, the Italian diplomats, members, so there were probably no more than about 250 actual donors there.