Sushi with Freddie Mac, happy hour with realtors

A timely dispatch from our friends at PartyTime.org.

If you haven’t been under a rock lately, you know that the Bush Administration is proposing a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. What you might not know is that there have been 258 parties this year alone for members of the House Financial Services Committee — the very folks who are making crucial decisions about this legislation — a number of them hosted by lobbyists for the finance, insurance, and real estate industries.

No room for us at ‘widely attended’ Qwest party

A new dispatch from Political Party Time.org

We’re just back from a party thrown by Qwest CEO Ed Mueller at the Denver Art Museum’s Palletes restaurant. Designed to be a “widely attended event” under the new ethics law, according to the invitation, apparently it wasn’t so widely attended that they were prepared to allow me in. (To meet the “widely attended” loophole, the event must have at least 25 attendees who are not members of Congress, and there must be some official business for the lawmaker attending, among other conditions.)

Not so popular

We’ll be posting periodic dispatches from Political Party Time.org on DNC parties.

Those of you who followed our exploits on twitter.com/SFPartytime will know that as I suspected, I’m not so popular when it comes to convention parties.