Photograph by Elise Amendola/AP Photo

U.S. Senate candidate Ed Markey shakes hands with a supporter in Boston, on April 30, 2013 as he celebrates winning the Democratic primary for the special U.S. Senate election.

It was sure to come to this:

There’s fundraising gold in them thar personal privacy versus national security hills.

Sen. Ron Wyden,  an Oregon Democrat who has been at the forefront of concern over government surveillance in the name of fighting terrorism, says fellow privacy-lovers have a friend in Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Markey, of course, is running for Senate in a special election June 25.

“I’ve known Ed for thirty years – and we’ve fought side-by-side to protect consumers and defend digital privacy many times,” Wyden writes in his fundraising pitch for Markey. “As chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, he has investigated – to name just one example – the practice of over-broad sweeps of cell phone records, in which cell carriers turn over the numbers of everyone who connects to a single phone tower.”

Wyden made the pitch in an email — though he won’t have to worry about the National Security Agency reading it because, one presumes, it was sent to American residents and citizens.

“If you’re worried about digital privacy, you’ve got a powerful opportunity to send a message – and send a privacy champion to the U.S. Senate. Please pitch in $23 today and let’s power Ed Markey to victory,” Wyden writes. (The same goes for global warming — concerned? send $23.)

There’s no hint here, by the way, of why they want $23.

Perhaps $24 was too much.

Original post is Cashing in On Digital Privacy: Wyden Fundraising Appeal for Markey ($23?) by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Washington, DC.

For quite some time now, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has been hosting parties — and raising political cash — to commemorate his birthday. He’s doing it again this year, and pulling out all the stops.

The Virginia Republican turns the big 5-0 today, and he’s invited folks to join him in Richmond tomorrow for “desserts, drinks and dancing.” A basic ticket for the gathering, expected to attract a few hundred, starts at $50. But $50,000 gets four people a dinner date with the congressman, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

The soiree no doubt will generate a good chunk of change for Cantor, who in the most direct sense doesn’t seem to need it: he routinely cruises to re-election (winning with 59 percent of the vote last November).

But a bulging campaign coffer wins friends and influences people when — as is widely presumed the case with Cantor — you’ve got your eye on one day becoming the House speaker. And, one wonders, perhaps even higher office.

The main bash that follows the dinner event is being held at the Science Museum of Virginia, which on its website boosts of housing “a theater company, a 30-ton moveable kugel ball, a Foucault Pendulum, and a variety of live animals—including our own rat basketball team!”

No word on whether the rodents plan to dunk a few for the donors.

Original post is Cantor’s 50th: Fifty Grand Buys Dinner by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

First lady Michelle Obama waves after delivering the commencement speech during the Bowie State University graduation ceremony at the Comcast Center on the campus of the University of Maryland May 17, 2013 in College Park, Maryland.

Updated 6/5 at 12:05 pm EDT

The first lady apparently has little patience for hecklers.

Under a white tent in the backyard of Karen Dixon and Nan Schaffer in Northwest Washington, DC, tonight,  with Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in attendance, first lady Michelle Obama was about 12 minutes into a 20-minute party fundraising speech.

An activist for LGBT rights standing at the front started shouting, calling for an executive order on gay rights.

“One of the things I don’t do well is this,” the first lady replied to applause.

She left the lectern, approached the protester, and said: “Listen to me or you can take the mic, but I’m leaving. You all decide. You have one choice.”

The crowd voted for Obama.

“You need to go,” one woman told  the protester, a self-proclaimed “lesbian looking for federal equality before I die.”

Protestor Ellen Sturtz is an advocate for GetEqual, according to Heather Cronk, co-director of the group. She was speaking out for an executive order to bar discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender identity, Cronk explained.

“So let me make the point that I was making before,” Obama said, carrying on with her talk. “We are here for our kids. So we must recapture that passion. That same urgency and energy that we felt back in 2008, 2012. Understand this — this is what I want you all to understand. This is not about us. No one back here. It’s not about you or you or your issue or your thing. This is about our children.”

 (With thanks to Amanda Terkel of Politico for the pool report.)

Today Sturtz and associates issued a statement about the point she was trying to make:

Last night, the Democratic National Committee held a fundraiser that was interrupted by organizers calling for President Obama to take action and leadership to end workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans. The four organizers — Ellen Sturtz of Washington, DC; Autumn Leaf of Ohio; Wooten Gough of North Carolina; and Amy Vesper of New Mexico — issued the following statement:

“LGBT people in North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio and all over the country are dehumanized in our jobs, and we are forced into the closet in order to participate in the American dream. We value the First Lady’s leadership and invite her to lead the charge within the Democratic Party to end employment discrimination. President Obama has an executive order sitting on his desk that can protect a quarter of the labor force in the U.S. from workplace discrimination, we will continue engaging leaders in the Administration and the Democratic Party until President Obama fulfills a promise to our community made five years ago.”

Original post is Michelle Obama 1, Heckler 0 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Kevin Rivoli/AP Photo

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, attends the Syracuse-Louisville NCAA college basketball game on March 2, 2013.

Virginia Democrat Terry McAuliffe outraised Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the past two months, according to campaign finance reports filed yesterday that underscored the national importance of the Nov. 5 election for governor.

McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, raised $3.7 million from April 1 to May 29, compared with $2.2 million for Cuccinelli, the state attorney general. McAuliffe ended the period with a cash-on-hand advantage of $5.4 million to $2.7 million.

McAuliffe received $2 million from the Democratic Governors Association, while Cuccinelli took $1 million from the Republican Governors Association. The two groups are vying to win more governorships for their respective parties; the current partisan breakdown is 30 Republicans and 20 Democrats.

McAuliffe received $250,000 from Peter Angelos, a lawyer who also is owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team; $100,000 from MCKM Marketing LLC in Washington; $10,000 from Mark Penn, a former political strategist to Bill and Hillary Clinton who’s now a Microsoft Corp. vice president; and $5,000 from the campaign committee of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Cuccinelli took $50,000 from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based Consol Energy Inc.; $25,000 from Dallas investor Harlan Crowe; $10,000 from Harold Simmons, chairman of Dallas-based Contran Corp., who donated millions to Republican candidates and causes in the 2012 elections; and $5,000 from the leadership political action committee of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The Richmond-based law firm Williams Mullen gave $10,000 each to McAuliffe and Cuccinelli.

Original post is Virginia: McAuliffe Tops Cuccinelli in Money by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Barack Obama at the White House.

The administration elected with a promise of hope and change is running a political summer camp: The Hope Institute.

The party put out the word in May, and President Barack Obama reminded supporters today that 40 “young people from underrepresented communities” around the country will be flown to Washington this summer for the “institute” — “a crash course in political organizing.”

Today’s note comes with a fundraising pitch, too — asking people to invest in “tomorrow’s leaders:”

The usual $5 minimum is sought.

“Democrats are picking up the tab, because we believe that helping to cultivate the next generation of Democratic leaders is worth investing in — and because sometimes the same old story won’t do,” the appeal says.

Join President Obama and support the #HopeInstitute: democrats.org/news/blog/pres… twitter.com/TheDemocrats/s…

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) June 3, 2013

Of course, the Democratic National Committee reported $20.6 million in debt at the end of April.

They can only hope fundraising for the institute goes well.

With some change leftover.

Original post is Hope Institute: Keep the Change by Political Capital.

Photograph by Stacy Bengs/AP Photo

Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann in Blaine, Minn.

Michele Bachmann says she is imposing term limits on herself.

“Eight is enough,” the saying of congressional term-limit proponents goes. And if it’s good enough for the president, the Minnesota Republican says in her campaign website video today announcing her retirement, it’s good enough for her.

“In my opinion, well, eight years is also long enough for an individual to serve as a representative for a specific congressional district,” Bachmann says in that eight-minute video.

This is the same Bachmann who already had raised $678,666 for her 2014 reelection during the first quarter of this year. Her campaign had $1.9 million in the bank as of March 31. She had started running a campaign TV ad in Minnesota’s Twin Cities with an $85,000 buy, touting her work against the president’s “Obamacare.”

The telegenic Republican who finished sixth in her party’s Iowa Republican Party presidential caucuses last year is among the House’s most prolific fundraisers. She also is politically endangered, winning reelection in November with just over 1,000 votes in a district that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney carried by 15 percentage points.

The key words here are: Endangered and telegenic.

Fox News needs a new Sarah Palin. And the former tax lawyer from Minnesota who co-founded the Tea Party Caucus in the House is the perfect replacement for the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee whose three-year contract with Fox was not renewed at the end of 2012. Bachmann is smarter, more articulate — and probably still has some political prospects left in her. Bowing out is better than losing.

This is the Republican whom Democrats love to hate — a factor that Bachmann profited from in her own campaign fundraising.  “Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party brand of extremism and obstruction have infected the entire Republican Congress, and her influence shows no signs of waning,” Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee says of Bachmann’s retirement today. “This Republican Congress will continue to turn off Americans of all political stripes because they’re using the Bachmann playbook: put politics before solutions.”

It’s big money, that post-political television business.

Ask Palin. Ask Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who won in that Iowa party presidential caucus arena where Bachmann failed. Ask David Axelrod, the political strategist for President Barack Obama who parlayed the president’s second term into not only a political institute of his own in Chicago, but also a seat on MSNBC, the anti-Fox.

They may not get paid by the word, yet Palin cost Fox News Channel nearly $16 per word over the course of her three-year contract, the University of Minnesota has found. The self-style hockey mom uttered 189,221 words during 140 appearances under a contract that ended in January. That averages to $15.85 per word, according to the report from the university’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. That’s $3 million.

Palin’s star rose and fell at Fox. The No. 1-rated cable news channel built a studio in her home. Her contract had started in January 2010, when she was considered a potential 2012 presidential candidate. Yet Palin had not appeared on Fox News since mid-December. During the Republican National Convention, she wrote on her Facebook page that Fox had “cancelled all my scheduled interviews tonight.”

Bill Shine, executive Vice President at FOX, issued a statement saying: “We have thoroughly enjoyed our association with Governor Palin. We wish her the best in her future endeavors.”

Failure in politics bears all kinds of fruit.

Actress Julianne Moore won the Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of Palin in the HBO film “Game Change” based on a book about the 2008 presidential campaign in which Republican John McCain ran with Palin.

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist and musician, now hosts the Saturday evening show “Huckabee” on FOX News Channel.

He makes a reported $500,000 a year.

He toyed with running for president again last year, though in a November 2009 interview Huckabee said that if he ever decided against running for president, there was a big reason:

Fox News.

“The reason I wouldn’t is because this Fox gig I’ve got right now, Chris, is really, really wonderful,” Huckabee told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace.

NBC News’s hiring of Axelrod, chief political strategist for both of Obama’s presidential elections, as a full-time political analyst for the news organization also is in keeping with a long tradition.

Fox hired Karl Rove, the architect of President George W. Bush’s two election campaigns. George Stephanopoulos, who advised President Bill Clinton , joined ABC News as a journalist and went on to host “Good Morning, America.”

If Minnesota’s loss is Fox’s gain, Bachmann could be back in the limelight, stronger than ever.

Original post is Bachmann Out-Foxing Democrats 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 Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Thomas “Tom” Wheeler, managing director of Core Capital Partners LP and President Barack Obama’s nominee as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), right, laughs as Obama makes the announcement in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 1, 2013.

In President Barack Obama’s administration, being a prolific fundraiser seems to be among the critieria to chair the Federal Communications Commission.

For the second time, Obama reached into his list of campaign bundlers and chose one of the most prolific, Tom Wheeler, who brought in more than $500,000 for the president’s re-election campaign. Wheeler succeeds Julius Genachowski, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama the first time he ran for the White House.

“That is the classic tool for getting appointed,” said Craig Holman, who lobbies on campaign finance issues for the advocacy group Public Citizen. “Most of the bundlers really get appointed to more ceremonial jobs, like ambassadorships. Tom Wheeler is moving into a very important position. Let’s hope that it isn’t just his bundling and fundraising that got him that appointment.”

Original post is As Obama Bundler, Wheeler Follows in Genachowski’s Footsteps by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

General David Petraeus speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for reappointment and commander of the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan in Washington, D.C.

First it was Mark Sanford running for Congress. Then it was Anthony Weiner floating a New York City mayoral campaign. Now, David Petraeus is putting himself out there post-scandal — as both a university professor and one lucky philanthropist’s work0ut buddy.

Former CIA Director and retired Army General Petraeus is joining Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York as a public policy visiting professor, the university announced yesterday. He starts Aug. 1.

“I look  forward to leading a seminar at Macaulay that examines the developments that could position the United States – and our North American partners – to lead the world out of the current global economic slowdown,” Petreaus, who has a doctorate from Princeton University, said in a statement.

The new professor is also the advertised prize of a virtual raffle hosted by Omaze, a for-profit crowdfunding website that raises money for charities. The raffle offers a “grueling” workout with Petraeus on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The website, which deems Petraeus “the celebrity” of the “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” is raising money for the Mission Continues, an organization that awards community service fellowships to recent veterans, according to its website.

There’s no fitness requirement noted on Omaze, but participants might want to read up on Petraeus’ six-minute miles before entering.  Petraeus has had plenty of time for his rigorous workouts since he resigned as CIA director last year after the disclosure of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

“Test your physical limits during an intense workout with the man that was once in charge of all U.S. armed forces’ foreign operations before discussing military strategy over a well-deserved coffee,” the website advertises. It adds that the workout will occur “in late summer or early fall 2013″ and makes no mention of his fall from grace.

A contribution of just $10 will enter a donor into the drawing, so Omaze users don’t have to go all in.

Original post is Crowdfunding Site Offers Professor Petraeus as Prize by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Marquette/AP Photo

James Carville, a key advisor for President Clinton during his presidential campaign, appears with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during a roast in Carville’s honor on June 18, 1993 in Washington.

Democratic consultant and pundit James Carville, who helped put Bill Clinton in the White House, is trying to do the same for the former president’s wife.

Carville today sent out an email on behalf of a super political action committee touting Hillary Clinton for president. While Clinton, a former secretary of state, U.S. senator from New York and first lady, hasn’t announced her plans, supporters are already raising money to support a potential candidacy.

“The enthusiasm and hunger for a Hillary Clinton presidency is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Carville wrote in his email. “But it isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank — and that’s why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that’s out there for Hillary’s candidacy into a real grassroots organization.”

Original post is Carville on Hillary Clinton: Gas Up ‘Fastest Car at the Racetrack’ by Political Capital.