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Upper East Side Dinner Party Circuit Promotes Women in Politics

By Amy Zimmer | April 6, 2011 3:58pm | Updated on April 7, 2011 7:52am

By Amy Zimmer

DNAinfo News Editor

MANHATTAN — For women who want to get to Capitol Hill, the first step is the Upper East Side.

That's where many of the city's power brokers will be opening up their opulent apartments to host dinner parties for Monday night's Women's Campaign Forum's 31st annual "Parties of Your Choice Gala."

For three decades, WCF has been organizing these annual dinner parties to bring together movers and shakers in the fields of politics, art, finance and media with one goal in mind: to increase the political participation of progressive women by supporting them at the earliest stage of their political careers — a time of incubation before they attract the big bucks of unions or group's like Emily's List.

"In the political world, it's like a horse race. [Donors] want to invest and bet on a horse they think is going to win," said WCF President/CEO Siobhan "Sam" Bennett. "That's almost antithetical to what we do."

She added, with a laugh, "Not that we want to compare women to horses."

This year's 12 dinner parties have taken on a greater sense of urgency as the nation has seen the first backslide of women's representation in more than 30 years.

Four women who lost bids for their districts' Congressional seats in the recent mid-term elections — but plan to run again — will be at the dinner parties, Bennett noted.

The U.S. is now ranked roughly 90th in the world for women in federal elected office, with women making up less than 17 percent of Congress. The country is behind Cuba and Afghanistan, she said.

"[Women] look at Nancy Pelosi, they look at Hillary Clinton and think, game over. Nothing could be further from the truth," Bennett said, explaining that the pipeline has ebbed. "There's no bench." 

WCF candidates can be of any political party as long as they support reproductive health choices, so pro-life Tea Party superstars Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann will not be coming to the gilded six-story East 72nd Street townhouse of Marjorie and Michael Loeb, who are hosting one of Monday's dinner parties.

The soiree at the Loebs' (Michael is founder and CEO of Loeb Enterprises, an investor of media and consumer marketing firms) will have food provided by chefs from the Four Seasons and include such luminaries as Oscar-nominated actress Debra Winger, who left Hollywood because of the difficulties women face there; Girl Scouts of the USA CEO Kathy Cloninger; Elinor Tatum, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Amsterdam News; and New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.

Other bold-faced names at the dinner parties — hosted by the likes of billionaire Cathy Lasry, real estate developer Henry Lambert and federal prosecutor Leslie Cornfeld — include Meredith Bennett, co-executive producer of "The Colbert Report"; television personality (and Rudy Giuliani's ex-wife) Donna Hanover; Democratic pollster Celinda Lake; former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton; Founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council John Adams; and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

The tickets, which start at $500, have been going fast: only 30 of 600 remain.

Several women, including Winger, Cloninger and Tatum, will also be among those at Monday's pre-dinner event at Christie's Auction House in Rockefeller Plaza performing in a piece that Bennett created where women, standing on ladders, share stories about the importance of female leadership.

Bennett envisions women across the country will do their own versions of this piece and video it, creating a "patchwork quilt" over the next 10 years that will help encourage and inspire women to run for office.

"When women run for office, they win at equal rates to men. When they raise money, they do so at equal rates to men," Bennett said. "What's the big problem: Not only do women not run. They don't even think of running."