The rich and the powerful gathered at the Capitol Hilton Saturday night for the 95th annual Alfalfa dinner, which was headlined for the eighth straight year by Alfalfan and 43rd president George W. Bush.
The dinner was bittersweet forBush, who lamented that he was marking his final appearance at the event as president. His father George H. W. Bush is an Alfalfan, as was his grandfather Prescott Bush. Much of Bush’s immediate family attended Saturday’s dinner, including the 41st president and former First Lady Barbara Bush and brothers Neil, Jeb and Marvin. Bush joked that on the way to the dinner, he told first lady Laura Bush that they should have held daughter Jenna and fiance Henry Hager’s wedding at the event.
Recommended Stories
The Alfalfa Club inducted eight new members, among them was House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. and Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn..
There are about 200 members of the club, most of them millionaires, billionaires or lawmakers at the highest levels of government.
Every year the club nominates a candidate for president of the United States and their choice this time was New York Mayor (and billionaire) Michael Bloomberg, who in real life has kept the public guessing about whether he will make a White House bid. Bloomberg accepted the club’s nomination, joking he would help eliminate the national debt by writing a personal check and would end global warming by footing the bill for a giant air conditioner.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., took the reins as the new Alfalfa Club president. His duties are light, as the club’s only purpose is to hold the annual dinner. Lieberman, who aside from Henry Kissinger is the only club president of Jewish faith, promised to work “24-6” in the new role.
