"Many of the Republican Party’s most powerful insiders and financiers have begun a behind-the-scenes campaign to draft former Florida governor Jeb Bush into the 2016 presidential race, courting him and his intimates and starting talks on fundraising strategy.Concerned that the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal has damaged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s political standing and alarmed by the steady rise of Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), prominent donors, conservative leaders and longtime operatives say they consider Bush the GOP’s brightest hope to win back the White House. Bush’s advisers insist that he is not actively exploring a candidacy and will not make a decision until at least the end of this year. But over the past few weeks, Bush has traveled the country delivering policy speeches, campaigning for Republicans ahead of the fall midterm elections, honing messages on income inequality and foreign policy, and cultivating ties with wealthy benefactors — all signals that he is considering a run.Many if not most of 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s major donors are reaching out to Bush and his confidants with phone calls, e-mails and invitations to meet, according to interviews with 30 senior Republicans. One bundler estimated that the 'vast majority' of Romney’s top 100 donors would back Bush in a competitive nomination fight.'He’s the most desired candidate out there,' said another bundler, Brian Ballard, who sat on the national finance committees for Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. 'Everybody that I know is excited about it.'But Bush, 61, would have serious vulnerabilities as a candidate. Out of public office for seven years, he has struggled in some appearances and has had difficulty navigating the Republican Party’s fault lines on immigration and other issues. A Bush candidacy also would test whether the nation still has a hangover from the George W. Bush administration.On Thursday night, Bush was feted here at a VIP dinner held by Sheldon Adelson inside the billionaire casino magnate’s airplane hangar. When one donor told Bush, 'I hope you run for president in 2016,' the crowd of about 60 guests burst into applause, said a donor in attendance." (WashPo)
"Not riding the cable-news wave of the missing Malaysian jet is MSNBC’s wunderkind Ronan Farrow, whose afternoon show has yet to make an impact. 'He sort of stinks on TV,' an anonymous MSNBC source says in today’s Daily News gossip page, which is perhaps prematurely warning of a potential cancellation. Although the show has only been on for about a month, 'He hasn’t turned out to be the superstar they were hoping for.' For context: Last Wednesday’s episode trailed an 8 a.m. repeat of Golden Girls on the Hallmark channel in the ratings, coming in 708th among all programming. And yet, MSNBC insists the rumors of the show’s early demise are 'simply not true. We’re happy with the debut of Ronan Farrow Daily and the show’s progress this first month. MSNBC will continue to support Ronan and his team as they develop and grow the program.'" (NYMag)
"Billionaire Leonard Lauder was spotted with a 'beautiful brunette' in Palm Beach after recently calling off his engagement to Brooklyn Public Library head Linda E. Johnson.The chairman emeritus of Estée Lauder, 81, was seen dining at hot spot BrickTop’s among a moneyed crowd that included billionaire Henry Kravis and his wife Marie-Josée, as well as Enterprise Rent-A-Car billionaire Jack Taylor, former Palm Beach mayor Lesly Smith, Texas oil mogul John Terwilliger and John and Marianne Castle.Lauder has been lauded as society’s most eligible bachelor since his split with Johnson, 55, late last year.The pair postponed their wedding last August days before they were to tie the knot, then split in December before a planned holiday party." (P6)
 |
Tobias Meyer sold this untitled Rothko at Sotheby’s in 2010 for $31.4 million. It belonged to the collector David Martinez, who had bought it for $19 million from Texas socialite Marguerite Hoffman, whose husband had purchased it in 1998 for just $2.8 million.
|
"The night that Sotheby’s held its most successful auction ever, and slipped deeper into corporate turmoil, there may have been only three people who fully comprehended the paradoxical dynamic. One of them was performing for the other two as he brought the hall to attention with eight clacks of a hammer. 'A very warm welcome to tonight’s sale of contemporary art,' said auctioneer Tobias Meyer. The handsome public face of Sotheby’s (and an imperious backroom power), Meyer exuded europäische cool as the first lot of the house’s big November auction, the Dan Colen painting Holy Shit, materialized on a silently rotating wall. As the bidding opened, Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby’s long-serving chief executive, took a silent appraisal of his auctioneer’s work as he stood at the margins of the silvery audience. Some were buyers, some were sellers—in the delicate vocabulary of the auction house, “collectors” and “consignors”—but most were accustomed to trading enormous sums. More than any other institution, except perhaps its rival Christie’s, Sotheby’s has brought together the realms of art and finance, producing a lucrative friction. But now the system was under strain, its competition turned self-destructive. Ruprecht was facing intense pressure from restive investors—in particular, the third man in the equation, the hedge-fund manager in Row 8. Dan Loeb, wearing a trim gray suit that night, is the public company’s largest shareholder. A few weeks before, he had likened Sotheby’s to 'an old-master painting in desperate need of restoration,' claiming it was falling far behind Christie’s, and had demanded Ruprecht’s resignation. Though he is an art collector, Loeb wasn’t planning to bid. He sat at the center of the auctioneer’s field of vision, smiling jauntily, trading whispers with his wife and an art adviser, his mere presence signaling a challenge.An auction is like a secret symphony, its surface spontaneity discreetly orchestrated." (NYMag)
Photo: PRNewsFoto
"The family of Nancy Pfister — the Aspen, Colo., blue blood whose body was mysteriously found in the closet of her home last month — are being closely guarded by security, sources say, in part because other suspects in the case could still be at large.'They’re not sure if they’ve got them all,' an Aspen source told Page Six of the ongoing investigation in which three suspects have so far been arrested on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with the case. 'There could be others lurking. Nancy’s relatives have been assigned security by the sheriff’s department. They are very grateful for that, and the support of friends and loved ones.'The source said Nancy Pfister’s sisters Suzanne and Christina — as well as her daughter Juliana — have been assigned security by the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. There’s also been a judicial protection order to bar the suspects in the case from contacting Pfister’s sisters or daughter. Arrests have included Pfister’s former assistant Katherine Carpenter and former tenants William and Nancy Styler.Pfister — whose family developed Buttermilk Mountain Ski Area, and who rubbed elbows with celebs from Jack Nicholson to Hunter S. Thompson — was found dead after posting messages saying she was having trouble with unnamed tenants. Sources have told Page Six that Pfister, 57, was tied up and bludgeoned. But the sheriff’s office has been silent about details surrounding the death that has rocked the ritzy community as the first homicide in over a decade." (P6)
No comments:
Post a Comment