Photograph by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Singer Carole King performs onstage at the 28th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on April 18, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

President Barack Obama has got a friend in Carole King, a staple singer of the Democratic fundraising performance circuit who will appear at the White House next week to receive the 2013 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

It’s not too late to recognize the singer and songwriter who has made the Earth move for so many fans so far away. She’s been to Canaan and may feel home again among the tapestries in the house where Obama has handed the same award to Stevie Wonder (2009), author of the president’s election and re-election theme song, “Signed, Sealed Delivered. ”

This is the first time the Gershwin award has gone to a natural woman, indeed a nightingale.

There will be no crying in the rain, as the show will be staged indoors, in the East Room, not up on the roof.

It should be one fine day, though it’s going to take some time to get through the program, with James Taylor (Democratic convention troubador), Billy Joel, Gloria Estefan and Trisha Yearwood playing at Wednesday’s installment of “In Performance at the White House.”

The whole Loco-Motion will be aired on PBS on Tuesday, May 28, at 8 pm EDT.

Meanwhile, King is polishing her credentials as a Democrat who takes good care of her babies, in this case Terry McAuliffe, the super-fundraiser and candidate for governor of Virginia:

Please join @terrymcauliffe for a Day of Action. Watch: youtube.com/watch?feature=… … #vagov

— Carole King (@Carole_King) May 17, 2013

Original post is Carole King: White House Earth-Mover by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mike Groll/AP Photo

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli waits for a news conference to begin on Jan. 7, 2013, in Albany, N.Y.

New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, wielding the power of the Empire State’s $160.4 billion pension fund, won the widest margin ever in a shareholder vote in favor of a resolution forcing corporate disclosure of political giving.

The almost 66 percent vote approving the resolution was made public today in a corporate filing by CF Industries Holdings Inc., a Deerfield, Illinois-based fertilizer company.

It beat the 53 percent Sprint Nextel Corp. shareholder-vote passing a similar resolution in 2011, according to DiNapoli.

The resolution’s victory shows momentum toward greater transparency in corporate political funding in the post-Citizens United landscape, he said in an e-mailed statement.

“The tide has shifted on the issue of political spending disclosure,” DiNapoli said. “Shareholders are standing up for transparency and accountability in how shareholder dollars are being used for political purposes.”

It’s the latest win for the 59-year-old Democrat, who has introduced more than two dozen such resolutions at companies in which the fund holds stock. Last month, five companies, including Southwest Airlines and Harley-Davidson, agreed to disclose political spending rather than go through a shareholder vote.

In January, DiNapoli sued Qualcomm, demanding it release political expenditure records. He’s been putting the pressure on companies after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed unlimited spending by corporations and unions in political activities. It kept caps on contributions to political campaigns.

The New York pension fund owned 352,500 shares in CF Industries valued at $64 million as of March 31, according to Eric Sumberg, a DiNapoli spokesman.

Original post is NY Comptroller Scores Record Corporate Political Disclosure Vote by Political Capital.

Photograph by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), standing onstage with his wife Susan and daughter Alex, concedes the Pennsylvania Senate race to Republican Pat Toomey November 3, 2010 at the Radnor Hotel in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

Just six months have passed since the last election and 18 months remain until the next one in November 2014. Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak already is planning for the election after that.

Sestak, a former House member who lost a Senate race in 2010, will prepare for a rematch against Republican incumbent Pat Toomey in a 2016 Senate election still 42 months away, Sestak said in a video today.

“The Senate needs a leader accountable only to we the people, not any other interest,” Sestak said in the three-minute video, which uses Independence Hall in Philadelphia as a backdrop.

“Together we can have an honest discussion about the issues and the challenges we face. We will hold our leaders and ourselves accountable to have a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Sestak said as he announced what his website calls an “exploratory committee.”

Sestak raised $460,250 in the first three months of 2013, according to a report he filed last month with the Federal Election Commission. He may use those funds for a Senate campaign.

Toomey beat Sestak in 2010, a good Republican year, by 51 percent to 49 percent after Sestak beat party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.

Toomey is a former president of the Club for Growth, a group that promotes free trade and supports slashing government spending and taxes, though he’s attracted attention recently as a co-sponsor of an amendment that would have expanded the background check system for firearm purchasers. Toomey was one of four Republicans who supported the amendment, which failed to win the requisite 60 votes last month.

Original post is Sestak Eyes Pennsylvania Comeback — in 2016 by Political Capital.

Visitors to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s website are told how the party “most heavily” relies on small donors while its Democratic counterpart’s “primary sources of funding” include labor unions, trial lawyers and Democratic House members.

Fundraising figures analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics tell another story.

The House Democrats’ fundraising arm took in 36 percent of the $22.6 million it raised from January to March in donations of $200 or less, according to CRP, a Washington-based research group.

The NRCC raised 14 percent of its $17.4 million in receipts from small-dollar donors.

For the 2012 elections, the NRCC raised $39.1 million from House Republicans, more than the $21.9 million that Democratic House members donated to their fundraising arm.

And while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $6.2 million from lawyers and labor, the NRCC brought in $9.9 million from Wall Street employees after every House Republican voted against imposing new regulations on the financial sector that has been blamed for contributing to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Wall Street gave $3.3 million to DCCC for 2012 elections. The committee’s website says only that the committee “is supported by the contributions of individuals and other groups from throughout the country.”

In 2013, Republicans have raised $2.5 million and Democrats have raised $8.2 million in small donations.

“Democrats are embroiled in three major scandals this week, but President Obama still found time yesterday to fundraise in New York City for the DCCC with his special interest cronies – liberal groups you can guarantee aren’t being targeted by the IRS,”  NRCC spokesperson Andrea Bozek said in an email.

Original post is House Republican Fundraising Claims Don’t Match Statistics by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Capitol in Washington, DC.

The Senate could be on the verge of entering the modern world when it comes to campaign finance.

More than one-third of the Senate — 35 senators — have attached their names to legislation that would require candidates to file their campaign finance information electronically to the Federal Election Commission, rather than on paper to the Secretary of the Senate. Senators and their opponents are now the only federal candidates who still use paper; others have been filing electronically for a decade.

The bill, S. 375, has bipartisan support. It was introduced by Democrat Jon Tester of Montana and Republican Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Previous efforts to require electronic filings have been blocked by Senate Republicans.

While presidential, House, political party and political action committee filings can be made instantly available for public inspection and analysis, it takes weeks, if not months, before Senate filings can be entered into the FEC’s computers.

“Through its insistence on clinging to this time consuming and expensive process of paper-based filing, the U.S. Senate succeeds only in denying voters vital information about who is bankrolling campaigns until after the votes have been counted, but that is precisely the goal of opponents,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group that favors stronger campaign finance laws.

Original post is Senators Eye 21st Century World of Campaign Finance by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mic Smith/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, center, speaks with voters, Joan Cobb, at left, and her father Harold Turner, at right, and reporters at Orlando’s Pizza in Daniel Island, S.C., on May 6, 2013.

Count Mark Sanford as a vote against expanding background checks for gun-buyers.

Count Sanford as a vote against the immigration bill from a bipartisan group of senators.

That’s if the vote-count in South Carolina’s special congressional election today goes the way of the former governor, a Republican whose tenure was marred by an extramarital affair with an Argentine, or Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert — in a district that leans heavily Republican, but where the latest public opinion polling showed a race to0 close to call.

Sanford says he wants this contest settled on the issues. He credits a recent debate with his Democratic opponent for bringing some of those issues to the fore — his opposition to “Obamacare” versus his opponent’s support, and more.

He is counting on those issues trumping the tale of the Appalachian Trail, in which the former governor’s office in 2009 told the public he had gone hiking when he actually had gone abroad.

“We finally began to talk about issues” as opposed to his background, going back to 2009, he said this morning in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” The hosts said Colbert had been invited for an Election Day interview as well, but declined. “In essence we’ve had a conversation here at home, not only about my strengths and weaknesses,” he said, but also about his belief in protecting taxpayers.

“We’re all going to make mistakes in life,” Sanford said of his own. “We all have feet of clay.” Responding to co-host Mika Brzezinski’s question about how the public can trust him going forward after the Appalachian-Argentinian episode, Sanford turned the question on her: “I guarantee you’ve made some personal mistakes in your life.”

If elected, the former governor and congressman was asked, how would he vote on the background check bill that failed to get 60 votes in the Senate.

“I’m a big Second Amendment person,” Sanford said. “I would have voted no.”

On the immigration bill that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and others are advancing in the Senate: “ think we could learn from history,” he said, pointing to the last major revision of immigration law in 1986 when 3 million undocumented immigrants were legalized with a promise of better border enforcement. The nation needs to start with enforcement first, he said — “I would not support the bill in its present form.”

(That bill, in its present form, requires the Department of Homeland Security to develop and enact a plan for 90-percent effectiveness in security of the highest-risk border sectors before any of the 11 million undocumented already in the country are granted new legal rights.)

Asked how he is feeling about this five-month contest after a crowded party primary, being outspent by the Democrat and forced into a close contest in a district that should be an easy walk for a Republican, Sanford said: “Worn out. All those things you feel at the end of a campaign,” he said. “You get ultimately to the day of judgment… You feel a mixture of calm… And worn out.”

Original post is Sanford ‘Worn Out’ on ‘Judgment Day’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Rainier Ehrhardt/AP Photo

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford makes a note on a piece of paper during the NAACP 1st Congressional District political forum on on April 30, 2013 in Goose Creek, S.C.

Democratic congressional nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch, sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, holds the financial  edge over former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford in the South Carolina special election taking place Tuesday.

Colbert Busch raised $1.2 million through April 17, including $38,250 from lawyers and $13,200 from employees in the television, movie and music industry that employs her brother. Sanford raised $787,952, including $54,000 from securities and investment industry employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

Colbert Busch also enjoyed an advantage in outside group spending. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $458,234, and the pro-Democratic House Majority PAC, a super-political action committee, spent $425,852 against Sanford.

The leading spender on the Repubilcan side is the nonprofit Independent Women’s Voice, which spent more than $160,000 to help elect the former South Carolina governor.

The National Republican Congressional Committee decided to sit out the special election following reports that Jenny Sanford filed a complaint against her ex-husband. The Sanfords divorced after he admitted that he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina. He had told his staff that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail to hide his visit to the woman with whom he is now engaged.

Original post is Sanford Losing Money Race in S.C. by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

George P. Bush

George P. Bush, fourth generation of a family whose political lines have run through Connecticut, Texas and Florida, is coming to Washington to help raise money for “the Donkey Whisperer.”

That’s first-term Texas Rep. Roger Williams, billing Bush as a “special guest” at Thursday’s fundraiser — credit Paul Bedard’s Washington Secrets with this tip.

Bush is running for land commissioner back home — an office considered a gateway to greater statewide office, and perhaps more in the case of a family that counts two presidents, one U.S. senator and a governor in its lineage.

George Prescott Bush is the first-born son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, nephew of former President George W. Bush, grandson son of former President George H.W. Bush, great-grandson of Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush.

And the Donkey Whisperer ad is worth the watching — ask the other 2 million people who have viewed it.

Seems Williams also was first to endorse Bush’s own campaign:

Big day for @teamgeorgep yesterday with our first endorsement from @rogerwilliamstx and two swell events in DFW twitter.com/georgepbush/st…

— George P. Bush (@georgepbush) April 3, 2013

Original post is George P. Bush Raising Money for Texas’ ‘Donkey Whisperer’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Jason Collins, left, #34 of the Atlanta Hawks, warms up before the game against the Golden State Warriors.

Perhaps notably, it was the Obama White House — and then President Barack Obama personally — who spoke of their pride in Jason Collins, the NBA center who announced that he is gay.

And perhaps predictably, now it is Collins co-headlining a party fundraiser.

With first lady Michelle Obama, one of the first to tweet her pride in the ballplayer.

The two are the featured stars at the Democratic National Committee’s 2013 LGBT gala in New York on May 29.

Collins already had contributed $5,000 to Rep. Joseph Kennedy III’s 2012 campaign — half as an employee of the Atlanta Hawks in February, half as a member of the Boston Celtics in August.

(Collins cited Kennedy as an inspiration in his Sports Illustrated coming-out essay.)

As for his ready deployment on the fundraising circuit, it was the Obama White House, after all, that was quick to celebrate Collins’ announcement. That wasn’t Mitt Romney tweeting the news.

So proud of you, Jason Collins! This is a huge step forward for our country. We’ve got your back! -mo

— FLOTUS (@FLOTUS) April 29, 2013

Bloomberg’s Derek Wallbank contributed to this report. 

Original post is Jason Collins, Michelle Obama: Fundraisers for Party’s LGBT Gala by Political Capital.

Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

President Barack Obama makes a final get-out-the-vote push for Democratic candidates, Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, running for U.S. Senate, left, and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Ct., right, in Bridgeport, Conn.

As the 2014 campaign begins, one bright spot for House Democrats is their early success raising campaign funds.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $22.6 million in the first three months of this year compared with $17.5 million for its partisan counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Yet money is one of many factors that shape election results, and it surely isn’t the most important one. Other factors militate against the 201-member Democratic minority securing a 218-seat majority next year — reconfigured district maps that favor Republicans, an inefficient clumping of Democratic voters in large metropolitan areas and the ability of some Republican incumbents to win competitive districts.

While President Barack Obama is helping House Democrats raise money, midterm elections almost always are difficult for the White House’s party. An administration’s supporters are less enthusiastic about voting in a lower-turnout midterm election year.

Obama is “very serious about raising money for congressional Democrats. But I’m not sure this is a challenge that money alone can solve,” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the DCCC’s finance chairman, said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast. “On the House side, the numbers are daunting in terms of Democrats taking control of the House, very daunting.”

Original post is DCCC Finance Chair: Winning House ‘Very Daunting’ by Political Capital.