Capitol Hill Dining: There is a lot of dining that is about the business of the Capitol

[DaveO]

This piece of news is about 1 and 1/2 years old...but interesting in its details, and the enormity of the activities that it tracks.

The article is from a political group that tries to shed some light on the volume of fundraising that goes on in the American Political System.  It  provides a map and a graph that gives some light as to the size, scope, and volume of political fundraising.  What is visually fascinating is to see the volume of political fundraisers within blocks of the Capitol and the restaurants that do a significant amount of that volume of entertaining.  The data represents 5 years of fundraising.  It also seems to me that their methodology doesn't capture all the fundraisers all the time.

Its the business of Washington after all.  Some years ago a friend of mine, a former lobbyist for a major corporation either was describing members of Congress and/or paraphrasing how someone else characterized their time in Washington.  It went something like this....."they spend a few hours each day on some legislative issues, most of which is mastered by their staffs and then spend the majority of every evening in town going to fundraisers and either raising or giving money".  The graph seems to indicate that is a very astute description.

In any case its obviously very valuable to some restaurants in the neighborhood.

[Tujague]

I'm going to invite Bob to move into my place tonight so we can proceed immediately with converting his condo into a fundraising venue. Thank you.