By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 11/13/12 11:11pm

Mahlered by Telemarketers

bernsteinsmaller

Stalked by the Philharmonic: When Fundraising Goes Too Far

The phone rings at 9 a.m. The number looks familiar, but I answer before I can place it. It’s them again. What do they want? Money. Membership. Support. Fund-raising. The phone rings several days later. It’s a different number. I answer before I remember not to. My brain is fuzzy; I haven’t had coffee yet.

“Hi, Kara, this is the New York Philharmonic,” the voice on the phone says.

“I’m not interested,” I say, trying to get off the phone as quickly as possible, feeling, once again, like a total heel.

I don’t not want to support them; I just don’t actually want to. Read More

By Drew Grant 9/13/12 12:25pm

Fundraising

Jay-Z and Beyonce (Getty Images)

Can Jay-Z and Beyoncé Top Anna Wintour in Obama Fundraising?

Probably not, seeing as the Vogue editor in chief was just announced as being the fourth-biggest fund-raiser for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in a document released to The New York Times. But this was due in no small part to the $40,000-dollar-a-plate dinner she held over at Sarah Jessica Parker’s house back in June: that event raised approximately $2,000,000 on that night alone.

Now the president and first lady of hip-hop want to give the editrix a run for her money. Read More

By Rachel Kramer Bussel 7/11/12 9:30am

Occupy the Hamptons

15 Photos

A Ticked-Off Triptych

Pun-Happy Protesters Take to the Beach Outside David Koch’s $50,000 Plate Romney Fundraiser

On Sunday, with temperatures hovering around 85 degrees, the Occupy Wall Street movement headed Out East to protest Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s $50,000 a plate dinner at the Southampton home of billionaire David Koch— one of three local fundraisers expected to raise a cumulative $3 million over the weekend.

Shouting “Election for sale” and “For $50,000, you could be a Koch whore too,” the crowd of approximately 150 people assembled with signs and music behind a banner reading “Mitt Romney Has a Koch Problem,” the event’s unofficial slogan. A similar banner was flown above the nearby beach, towed behind a MoveOn-commissioned plane. That organization also brought its Romney Mobile, complete with fake dog strapped to the roof and company logos such as UBS and Bain Capital Ventures on the side.

More than an anti-Romney protest, the focus was on Koch and the influence of wealth on the electoral system. Signs read “Romney is All Koched Up” and “End Corporate Personhood” while a balloon was scrawled with “Romney = Koch Sucker” (the protestors apparently wanting it both ways, pun-wise, when it came to Mr. Koch’s surname). Read More

By Foster Kamer 6/12/12 8:16pm

SHEKELS AND THE CITY

Sarah Jessica Parker

Watch Sarah Jessica Parker Get Deleted from Obama Fundraising Emails in Real Time!

You wouldn’t think, but not all mail-merge, en masse, preformed emails are alike. Which is why journalism nonprofit ProPublica created their a wonderful little feature—right now, in beta—called the Message Machine, which crowd-sources communications like emails from campaigns, collects them, and notes the small differences. The one they’re working on now is about Sarah Jessica Parker fundraising for Barack Obama in New York City.

It’s pretty interesting to watch—and note—the way most people got emails that left out the emphatic praise of Sarah Jessica Parker from emails other recipients received. Read More

By The Editors 11/01/11 6:59pm

opinion

Liu, With No Choice, Makes a Good One

City Comptroller John Liu really had no choice. Faced with serious questions about his campaign fund-raising, Mr. Liu backtracked from his position that an inquiry could be handled in-house. Instead, under mounting public criticism, Mr. Liu asked former State Attorney General Robert Abrams to conduct an independent audit of his campaign’s books.

Good move. And good choice. Mr. Abrams, who served as A.G. from 1979 to 1993, has an impeccable reputation and would seem to have no ax to grind.

What remains uncertain, however, is whether Mr. Abrams will have the resources—in terms of a budget and personnel—to conduct a thorough investigation of Mr. Liu’s tangled campaign finances. Read More

By David Freedlander 4/19/11 7:52pm

Stockpiling

Cuomo, Queen of the Desert

A reader passed along the following invitation for Andrew Cuomo’s first major fundraiser since getting inaugurated at the start of the year.

The fundraiser is tied together with a performance of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and according to our reader, specifically targets members of the LGBT community. (The show is about two drag queens Read More