Photograph by Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Timothy Geithner and his wife Carole Sonnenfeld Geithner, attend the U.S. presidential inauguration in Washington on Jan. 21, 2013.

Updated March 22 at 1:30 pm:

It takes a Treasury secretary to turn a good investment.

Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is looking for a modest return on his Bethesda, Maryland, home.

Geithner and his wife Carole bought the 2,537 square foot house in 2009 for $950,00 and have listed it for $995,000.

Bloomberg’s  John Gittelsohn reported today that there is a contract on the place, after jut a week of listing.

Here’s a virtual tour of the place. 

Geithner, who finished his term as  Treasury secretary in January, has found a buyer for his house, under contract now with some contingencies, but isn’t dependent on a buyer selling a current house to close the deal, according to the Web-site of brokerage Redfin Corp. It was listed March 14.

That would make it a post-bubble purchase that has held up fairly well — though only in  economically isolated enclaves like suburban Washington does 2,500 square feet fetch close to $1 million.

The rambler-style home has four bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The kitchen has had some upgrades since its 1954 construction.

“No war rooms for planning world domination that we could find, but there is a deck overlooking a large backyard,” Curbed.com notes.

Geithner has been replaced by Treasury Secretary Jacob (Jack) Lew., who already worked at the White House, his housing needs unchanged.

Original post is Geithner’s Profit: Asking for $45,000 — Update: Contract by Political Capital.

Photograph by Johannese Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

Boxes of rosaries with a picture of Pope Francis in a gift shop at St Peter’s square on March 14, 2013 at the Vatican, a day after his election.

President Barack Obama has offered House Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic, a trip to the Vatican.

The speaker, immersed in budget talks, has declined.

Plus, the prime minister of Ireland is coming to Washington for St. Patrick’s Day-centered festivities.

Pope Francis may be getting his formal investiture in Rome, but Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is going to the White House on Tuesday for the annual Shamrock ceremony that dates to Harry Truman’s days and a St. Patrick’s Day (two days later) luncheon at the Capitol.

Obama plans to join the Taoiseach at the Capitol luncheon.

Yet Boehner will not be joining Vice President Joe Biden, the nation’s highest ranking Catholic politician, in Rome.

“I am grateful for the invitation to attend the papal investiture in Rome with Vice President Biden, and would like to be able to join the trip,” the speaker said today in a statement released by his office. “Unfortunately, my duties in the House next week – including hosting President Obama and the Prime Minister of Ireland at the Capitol on Tuesday, and the debate on the budget – make that impossible. ”

“I wish the vice president all the best in his journey, and hope he communicates the prayers and warm regards of every American, especially Catholics, to the first pope from the Americas.”

Mark Silva contributed to this report. 

Original post is Boehner Passes on Rome with Biden, Hosting Irish PM for Paddy’s Lunch by Political Capital.

Photograph by Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

The new website of Hillary Clinton in Washington.

The president tends to hog the headlines when he shows up at the Gridiron Club’s spring dinner — as President Barack Obama has done only twice since moving to the White House.

This year, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal managed to upstage Obama.

The press, however — OK, media, social or otherwise — also gets a few licks in at an annual event where, according to the 128-year-old club’s standing rules, the humor can “singe,” but must never “burn.”

To the accompaniment of the red-jacketed U.S. Marine Band Saturday night at the Renaissance Washington Hotel, the white-tie audience heard some serious singeing in the singing of satirical numbers by members of the invitation-only Gridiron and a few professional ringers in the chorus.

Clarence Page, longtime and prize-winning Washington columnist for the Chicago Tribune, appeared in the persona of Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

“Nothing you can say could tear me away from my gun,” Page-LaPierre sang to the tune of “My Girl.”

If you hate the NRA, tell my Walther PPK.
You’re flirting with disaster, with my Bushmaster.
And when pigs start to fly, my cold dead hands you’ll pry — from my gun.

“I was the very model of a four-star CENTCOM general,” sang the ringer-singer posing as retired Army Gen. David Petraeus:

It really all began because I had a way of mentoring,
Aphrodite knocked upon my door and then I let her in.
I still just don’t believe it but I saw it with my own two eyes,
to think it all began with just a simple form of exercise.

Even the formerly tweeting and now retired Pope Benedict XVI was fodder for satire in the spoof entitled “Give Me That Online Religion.”

Sen. Marco Rubio got the pop-singer Ricky Martin treatment — “Livin’ La Vida Loca” became “Savin’ the Party Loca” in a duo with “Chris Christie”:

Upside, inside out I’m savin’ the party loca,
I’ll push and pull you round, savin’ the party loca.
We want our base to grow, we need skin the color mocha.
Young and old come on — savin’ the party loca.

For House Speaker John Boehner, it seemed, only “Les Miserables” would suffice:

Master of the House,
Rayburn I am not,
House GOP caucus is a sorry lot.
Hurtling off the cliff, gotta watch our backs.
Grover N will get us if we raise a tax.

Washington’s lobbyists found something in common with the press, in the delivery of a scene from “Tommy,” with a song about the president, aka Pinball Wizard:

Ever since November Seventh,
it’s settled like a pall.
On Congress, on the press corps,
From K Street to the Mall.
We never got this feeling from any other pol.
That mighty Obama don’t like us much at all.

Debt ceilings? To the tune of “Feelings”: “Ceilings, they’re coming back, debt ceilings…”

And to “Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious”:

Mandatory legislative budget sequestration,
across the board affecting every sector of our nation,
dairy goats and pleasure boats and civil aviation,
mandatory legislative budget sequestration.

With no apologies to the Beatles, Hillary Clinton was played as more concerned about 69 than 64:

Got a bit older, growing my hair, gained a pound or two.
Going home to vegetate in Chapaqua, I just want to be a gradma.
 It was more than a case of Beghazi flu, still I’ll be just fine.
Will you select me, will you elect me, when I’m 69?

There was an homage to women in the military — “I Will Survive” — a lament about the polarization of Washington — “The Weight” — and a run at Vice President Joe Biden — “I’m Not Barack.”

Who needs Barack? We got Joe Biden.
Yeah Barack he’s the man, but Joe Biden, he’s your guy.

Yet, as a survivor of the Sixties, this guest of the Gridiron found particular pleasure in the rendition of Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women.”

Everybody must get droned.
We drone cause we got tired of Iraq
We drone you cause we got some drones in stock.
We drone because we haven’t got a clue.
Yeah, Barack’s got bigger drones than W. 

We don’t know where the next insurrection might be grown.
So everybody must get droned.

Despite the fun that Obama poked at a dinner and show notorious for its length —  the president, opening with a joke about the budget sequestration cutting his tails, said: “Of course, there’s one thing in Washington that didn’t get cut — the length of this dinner yet more proof that the sequester makes no sense” — it was all done by little after 10:30 pm.

Eastern Standard Time, that is.

The cast lost an hour to sleep it all off.

Original post is Gridiron’s ‘Hillary’: ‘Will You Select Me, Will You Elect Me, When I’m 69?’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mark Wilson/AP Photo

The Jefferson Hotel in Washington.

President Barack Obama has invited Republican senators to dinner tonight.

Yet this is no White House dinner.

It’s an off-campus soiree, at the Jefferson Hotel.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama’s opponent in the 2008 election, is among the several senators meeting for dinner. So is his friend, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

The Jefferson dates to 1923, when Calvin Coolidge was new in town. It started as The Jefferson Apartment, of Beaux Arts design, and became a hotel in 1955. It has undergone a “top-to-bottom” renovation over two years that in 2009 yielded a new boutique hotel with 99 rooms, a spa, private dining rooms and a rediscovered lobby skylight that had been covered over.

The dinner several blocks from the White House is “subject to postponement if the weather deteriorates,” the White House says.

Original post is Obama’s Republican Dinner Off-Campus — Weather Permitting by Political Capital.

Photograph by Dennis Brack-Pool/Getty Images

Vice President Joe Biden speaks to the National Governors Association in the State Dining room of the White House on Feb. 25, 2013 in Washington.

Leave it to Vice President Joe Biden to prove that every sequestration has a silver lining.

Due to the across-the-board federal spending cuts set to begin tomorrow, Biden is ditching his usual military plane and returning to his preferred mode of transportation: the train.

While speaking to the National Association of Attorneys General on Wednesday, Biden — after whom the Wilmington, Delaware, train station was renamed in 2011 — said he took almost 8,000 train trips between Washington and Delaware as a U.S. senator. As vice president, he flies because ”the Secret Service doesn’t like” him taking the train.

“They concluded it gives too many opportunities for people to interact with me in a way they wouldn’t like to see them interacting,” Biden said. “And so they fly me back and forth.”

Biden said his cost-saving travel decision is the one thing to his “benefit” to come of sequestration.

“Now I was able to say, ‘Look, guys, I’ve got to take the train now. It’s cheaper than flying,’” Biden said, prompting laughter from the crowd. “So I get to take the train again.”

Original post is Biden’s Silver Sequestration Lining by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton during the news conference in this file photo.

A family that wants to leave the tony Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Spring Valley because of concerns over the area being a former dumping ground for military munitions is getting some help from Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

The District of Columbia’s non-voting representative in the House wrote a letter today to the Army Corps of Engineers, urging it to temporarily relocate Rogerio Zandamela and his family, including two children ages 1 and 5.

They live across the street from a property on Glenbrook Road, where the Army has already demolished a home and removed some of the 500 munitions, 400 pounds of laboratory glassware and 100 tons of contaminated soil found in the area, according to Norton.

During World War I, the northwest neighborhood was part of a site used by the Army to develop and test chemical weapons such as mustard gas. Now, it’s home to multimillion-dollar residential properties and American University.

“The cost of relocating this family is small compared to the overall cost of this years-long project,” Norton, a Democrat, wrote.

The price tag for the entire remediation project, now two decades old, is about $240 million, according to Andrea Takash, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps.

It’s unclear how much it would cost to move the Zandamelas.

Original post is Norton to Army: Move Family From Dump by Political Capital.

Photograph by CBS News

Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor of California, is pitching a new book. Photo by CBS News.

“Government should be as smart as Google,” Gavin Newsom said Friday at a party to celebrate the release of his book “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government.”

The fete brought the Democratic lieutenant governor of California and former mayor of San Francisco to Washington to dispense some advice.

Newsom urged all freshmen members of Congress to get Twitter accounts — and tweet more than just their schedules and press releases.

“It has to be a two-way conversation,” he said. “Otherwise, don’t even engage.”

In the book, Newsom argues that Washington should embrace the digital revolution to better engage a disgruntled citizenry. For research, he talked to tech pioneers such as Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, and Evan Williams, co-founder and former chief executive officer of Twitter.

Newsom said his own staff was “petrified” when he opened his Twitter account (@GavinNewsom). Today the one-time host of a show on Current TV has more than 1,253,000 followers.

Politicians “have to meet people where they are,” he said.

Newsom, 45, has “a particular bias” toward running for governor — and “every expectation” that California Gov. Jerry Brown will seek reelection. For now, he’s determined to push through an economic development plan for his state.

Later this month, he’ll walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards with his wife, Jennifer Siebel, director of the 2011 documentary “Miss Representation,” about the lack of positive images of women in the media.

Tammy Haddad hosted the book party at the Jefferson Hotel. Guests included former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, Democrat of California and “Meet the Press” executive producer Betsy Fischer Martin. Newsom was scheduled to appear on the show on Sunday.

Stephanie Green writes for Bloomberg Muse — @stephlgreen @bloombergmuse

Original post is @GavinNewsom: Jerry Brown Watch by Political Capital.

Photograph by Getty Images

President Barack Obama on the golf course in Palm City, Florida, Feb. 16, 2013. Photo by Getty Images.

More fun facts on the Floridian in Palm City, Florida, where President Barack Obama is having his guys’ golf getaway this President’s Day weekend.

Jim Crane, the avid golfer who owns the club and also the Houston Astros baseball team, has been an Obama campaign backer, according to donor records.

Houston, 59, chairman and chief executive officer of Crane Capital Group, and his wife, Franci, have donated $57,700 to Obama and the Democratic National Committee since 2007, when Obama announced his candidacy for president, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. Crane also hosted a campaign fundraiser for Obama last March at Minute Maid Park, the Astros’ home field.

Crane bought the club from Florida-based entrepreneur Wayne Huizenga, founder of Waste Management, Blockbuster Video and AutoNation, in 2010. Huizenga is also a longtime donor to Republican candidates and the party.

Among the club’s members at the time were talk radio host and Obama critic Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, on his show yesterday, noted the connection.

“I was a proud and honored member of the Floridian,” Limbaugh said. “Then Wayne sold it to a nice guy by the name of Jim Crane, who’s the owner of the Houston Astros.”

“The president’s got himself a good, old-fashioned guys golf weekend,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript posted on his Web-site.

“You know, it’s shame,” he said. “We’ve got what’s for us a major cold front going through here tonight. Tomorrow, the temperature will barely hit 75, and then Sunday it will barely hit 60. It’s gonna be very, very chilly. Now, for the president that probably won’t be too chilly because he’s coming from a Northern clime. But for us, that’s fireplace and sweater weather.”

Original post is Obama’s Florida Golf Weekend — Limbaugh’s Sweater Weather by Political Capital.

Photograph by Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

The rear exterior and pool of a newly constructed mansion in New Jersey.

The Census Bureau has begun to release demographic and economic data for redrawn congressional districts that became effective this year, yielding valuable insight about the constituencies of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Following are the 10 districts with the highest median household income in 2011, according to Census Bureau estimates compiled by Bloomberg’s Frank Bass. The list is dominated by districts near Washington, D.C., New York City and San Jose, all areas with high costs of living.

While these districts are prime territories for political candidates to raise money, it’s less clear how income relates to voting. While Republicans generally do better and Democrats worse as voter income levels rise, there are plenty of areas that are wealthy, Democratic and socially liberal, including parts of Manhattan and some districts on this list, namely Virginia’s 8th.

The 51 districts with a median household income above $70,000 break down are represented by 29 Democrats and 22 Republicans. Democrats hold six of the 10 highest-income districts and 16 of the top 25.

1. Virginia’s 10^th ($109,505): Republican Frank Wolf represents suburbs of Washington, including all of fast-growing Loudoun County and part of Fairfax County, including McLean. President Barack Obama lost the district by about one percentage point in the 2012 election.

2. Virginia’s 11^th ($100,146): Democrat Gerry Connolly’s district abuts Wolf’s, enveloping parts of Fairfax and Prince William Counties. Connolly’s district became more Democratic-leaning in redistricting as Wolf’s became more Republican-friendly. Obama won 62 percent in Connolly’s district.

3. California’s 18^th ($97,001): Democrat Anna Eshoo represents part of San Jose and all of Mountain View, including the corporate headquarters of Google Inc., and Palo Alto, where Stanford University is located. Obama won 68 percent.

4. New York’s 3^rd ($95,699): Democrat Steve Israel’s district includes sections of Suffolk and Nassau counties on Long Island, plus a part of Queens.

5. New Jersey’s 7^th ($95,189): Republican Leonard Lance’s district cuts across the north-central part of the state, taking in communities like Bridgewater and Summit.

6. New Jersey’s 11^th ($93,655): Republican Rodney Frelinghuysen’s constituency includes most of Morris County.

7. California’s 17^th ($92,030): Democrat Mike Honda represents Sunnyvale, part of San Jose and the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc. in Cupertino. Obama won 72 percent.

8. Virginia’s 8^th ($91,027): Democrat Jim Moran’s district includes close-in suburbs of Washington, including Arlington, Alexandria and part of Fairfax County. Obama won 68 percent.

9. Maryland’s 8^th ($90,959): Democrat Chris Van Hollen represents most of Montgomery County near Washington.

10. California’s 45^th ($89,383). Republican John Campbell holds a district in central and southern Orange County that includes Irvine and most of Mission Viejo. Republican Mitt Romney won 55 percent of the district vote in 2012.

Original post is Top-10 Congressional Districts: Household Income by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

The Washington monument stands as pedestrians walk ahead of the presidential inauguration in Washington, DC.

Who says Washington is dysfunctional?

Washington is downright happy with the way things are going.

Of all the places where the Gallup organization has polled people about their confidence in the economy, Washington, D.C., stands out as most confident.

The 2012 survey of economic confidence put D.C. in clear positive territory, with a 29 confidence rating, well ahead of Minnesota and Hawaii.

Pulling up the bottom? West Virginia, with a negative 42 rating.

This could have something to do with that recent report from the Bloomberg Rankings team that annual wages in Washington, D.C., during the past decade grew more than wages gained in any state. Up from $49,420 a year to $74,540 a year in 2011 — far more than the next highest 2011 annual wage of $42,510.

That could have something to do with the District’s buoyant confidence in the economy.

Then again, Washingtonians still labor under taxation without representation -- which suggests that good pay may be a good substitute for a good congressman. Or that those without a voice in Congress have the most confidence in the economy.

Original post is Washington’s Economic Confidence No. 1 by Political Capital.