As distinguished from the "HSAC Democrats" who did and continue to do the exact same thing?

Dog bites man, man bites dog. This is not news, nor worthy of being commented upon.

It is more interesting in how it might shed some light on the people who find this newsworthy, as opposed to the lack of newsworthiness of the item itself.

These freshman Congressmen got elected by relying on campaign professionals, as fully as any green lieutenant relies on his platoon's sergeants. The difference is that the lieutenant (in our Army, anyway) isn't responsible for getting his sergeants paid. The freshman Congressmen are.

As soon as they get elected, they are told by everyone who got them across the finish line (as well as by people like Rep. McKeon, who bought into the campaign financing racket a long time ago and will be important in the Congressmen's immediate futures) that raising money is the first thing they have to think about every day. They have to think about it, because that's how they can afford the people who got them across the finish line. Raising money in big chunks is easier than raising it in small chunks, and the people with the big chunks are often lobbyists with business before the Congressmen's committee.

This isn't to say that Congressmen in general or freshman Congressmen in particular aren't ethically blind, intellectually clueless or otherwise undesirably susceptible to what looks like thinly veiled bribery. Some of them are. The position they find themselves in, though, is profoundly awkward, and for most of them the money directed at them at functions like the dinner described here goes almost immediately to someone else.

I don't remember who said it but, " If you can't eat their food, drink their whiskey, **** their women and vote against them you don't belong in politics."

....we know the politicians must feed the next term beast...but, how does this influence the divisions of insiders help that works in hidden offices without transparency - house and senate staffs?