Inaugural Cheez Its.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For most Americans, the phrase Inaugural Ball conjures up images of the commander in chief and first lady clad in full evening dress taking a waltz on the dance floor. If you'd like to maintain that illusion of grandeur when 2016 rolls around, Politicker humbly suggests you stay home and watch the festivities on television, because the reality is far less glamorous. Last night's main Inaugural Ball was like a low rent prom complete with a gym-like venue, chips standing in for hors d'oeuvres and 80's music. Amid all these cut-rate accoutrements and incongruously overdressed guests, we also spotted a basketball legend, a dancing congresswoman and, of course, the president.

The route into the ball, which was held inside the Washington Convention Center, took guests decked out in black tie through a number of security checkpoints that left them waiting in lines stretching for blocks outside. Once in the ball, the situation wasn't much better. Escalators took guests down into a cavernous hall that, apart from a few light displays and several presidential seals people lined up to pose in front of, had few decorations to disguise the fact the space was essentially a massive cement hangar.

Though the crowd was wearing their finest and paid about $200 for the privilege of attending, the only food they were treated to was two varieties of pretzels and Cheez Its on paper plates. We spotted at least one guest snapping photos of the chip buffet.

"No one is going to believe they had Cheez Its at the ball!" she exclaimed.

Those who wished to imbibe needed to endure a lengthy wait to purchase drink tickets before a separate long line at the cash bar.

Musical acts performed on a stage in one corner of the room, but you probably had a better view at home as most areas of the huge convention hall had no view of the stage and most ball guests were trapped in line for drinks long enough to miss a substantial portion of the show. Highlights of the concert included Alicia Keys, who performed a remixed version of her hit "Girl On Fire" that must have alarmed the Secret Service agents in attendance.

"Obama's on fire," she sang. "Obama's on fire."

When President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, took the stage for their ceremonial dance, Jennifer Hudson performed a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." Their appearance caused guests to surge towards the stage or any corner of the room where they could get a glimpse of the first couple.

Initially, we didn't see any high-profile guests in the crowd, but after wandering the massive room we found a cordoned off area for "special guests." This elite section of the ball featured the same sad Cheez It and pretzel spread, but at least the drinks were free. Like a vision from a fever dream, we suddenly saw Knicks legend Patrick Ewing, who seemed to be have the only celebrity in the crowd, attempting to order a drink at the bar while contending with a steady stream of fans asking for his photo.

We asked Mr. Ewing about the speculation he could join the coaching staff of the Brooklyn Nets in the wake of the team firing head coach Avery Johnson last month. Mr. Ewing, who coached in Orlando and Houston after his playing career, said he hadn't heard from the Nets, but he would gladly take any coaching job.

"I'm willing to join any team, just give me the opportunity," Mr. Ewing said. "Just give me the opportunity anywhere, Brooklyn, New York, everywhere and anywhere."

Politicker also shared our personal story of giving up our Knicks fandom due to the way the team treated Mr. Ewing in his later years and eventually defecting to root for the Nets.

"I appreciate that," Mr. Ewing said.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney cutting a rug at the Inaugural Ball.

On our way out, we saw another familiar face, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who was working her way through the crowd with her two daughters and a young man. Ms. Maloney grabbed our hand and pulled us along with her.

"You having fun or covering the event?" she asked.

When we informed her we were indeed covering the event she expressed her sympathies. A few moments later the DJ put on Madonna and when the pop diva commanded, "dance and sing, get up and do your thing," the congresswoman dutifully obeyed.

"We've got to dance!" she shouted back to us as she spun away.

"When you're less popular than cockroaches, Genghis Khan, traffic jams, and yes even Nickelback, well, it might be time to reevaluate," Tom Jensen, PPP's director, said in a statement accompanying the poll.

Despite these dismal results, there were some things the pollsters found that are even less popular than Congress including; Lindsay Lohan, telemarketers, North Korea and Gonorrhea. View the full results of the poll here.

"Chicks With Steve Buscemeyes" debuted in April 2011 and instantly became a viral hit. The site features images of attractive female celebrities with Mr. Buscemi's eyes photoshopped over their famous faces.

Since Mr. Buscemi's fundraiser for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio next month inspired this post we obviously started with him for our take on the meme. Click on the Buscemeyed version of Mr. de Blasio to see a slideshow with the rest of the mayoral hopefuls getting the Buscemi treatment.

David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell. (Photo: PaulaBroadwell.com)

Writers who craft the infamous "ripped from the headlines" plots on Law & Order: SVU are apparently having trouble keeping up with the ongoing scandal over former CIA Director and retired general David Petraeus' affair with his biographer. Now that the story has grown to include another general and an FBI agent accused of sending shirtless pictures of himself to a woman the man in charge of the sex crimes-focused cop show sent a tweet begging for mercy. He also threw in Sesame Street muppet Elmo, who had a sex scandal of his own break this week.

"Memo to:FBI/CIA/NATO/SesameStreet From:SVU Writers' Room--Please slow it down, we're having a hard time getting this all down," wrote SVU showrunner Warren Leight this morning.

Mr. Leight's request came a few hours after a nearly identical tweet sent last night that was just directed at the FBI and the CIA. Sounds like we can look forward to an SVU episode chock full of muppets, spies and soldiers as long as the show's writers manage to make it through this experience without crippling carpal tunnel.

They might not be within SVU's budget, but Politicker would like to humbly suggest Mad Men's John Slattery might make a good Petraeus and French actress Marion Cotillard is a pretty solid lookalike for the ex-spy's lover, Paula Broadwell. There is clearly only one choice to play Elmo.

Lena Dunham. (Photo: Twitter)

Girls star Lena Dunham has already shown an interest in local politics, but now, the actress-slash-auteur-slash-author is getting involved in the presidential election. Ms. Dunham taped a video for the Obama campaign filled with plenty of sexual innuendo and her reasons for supporting President Barack Obama.

Ms. Dunham's video, which is entitled "Your First Time," was released this evening and features her staring into the camera having seemingly giving advice about losing one's virginity.

"Your first time shouldn't be with just anybody," Ms. Dunham says. "You want to do it with a great guy."

As the video continues, it becomes clear Ms. Dunham is talking about voting--specifically, casting a ballot for President Obama.

"My first time voting was amazing. It was this line in the sand: before, I was a girl, now I was a woman," Ms. Dunham says.  "I went to the polling station, I pulled back the curtain, I voted for Barack Obama."

Ms. Dunham was born in May 1986, so she would have been eligible to vote for the first time in 2004 rather than 2008. Apparently, she didn't feel John Kerry or George W. Bush was worthy of being her first.

Watch Ms. Dunham's video below.

Alec Baldwin (Photo: Getty)

A new poll of the race to replace term-limited New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg released last night included actor Alec Baldwin, who has hinted he might run for mayor. Based on the numbers, Mr. Baldwin might want to abandon his dream of sitting in City Hall. According to the poll, which was conducted by NY1 and Marist College, 66 percent of New York voters don't want Mr. Baldwin to even try running for mayor. 

Just 18 percent of registered New Yorkers said they'd like to see Mr. Baldwin make a mayoral bid while 16 percent were "unsure." Though Mr. Baldwin has earned a reputation as an outspoken liberal, opposition to him cut across party lines with 69 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans saying they don't want him to enter the mayoral race.

Mr. Baldwin performed even more poorly in the poll than scandal-scarred former Congressman Anthony Weiner and ex-Governor Eliot Spitzer.

The poll indicated 25 percent of New York voters would like to see Mr. Weiner, who resigned from the House of Representatives in June 2011, after he was caught sending lewd Twitter messages to multiple women, make a run for mayor while 58 percent of voters would prefer to see him stay out of the race. Mr. Spitzer, who left the governor's mansion in 2008 after he was busted for patronizing a prostitution ring, performed slightly better with 30 percent of voters saying they'd like to see him mount a mayoral campaign and 57 percent saying they want him to stay far from City Hall.

Politicker reached out to Mr. Baldwin to discuss the poll results. As of this writing, we have yet to receive a response.

Big Bird on the streets of Manhattan in 2009. (Photo: Getty)

Team Romney has decried Democrats' repeated mentions of Big Bird since Mitt Romney brought up the beloved muppet while declaring his intention to end the federal subsidy for PBS during last week's presidential debate, but the Obama campaign shows no sign that they intend to stop invoking Sesame Street any time soon. In fact, at an Obama rally at Ohio State University this afternoon, rapper will.i.am performed a rendition of the theme song of the popular children's television show to rile up the president's supporters. 

According to Politico reporter Reid Epstein, who was on the scene at the Ohio State rally, will.i.am's Sesame Street stylings may not have had the desired effect.

"Much, much more enthusiasm when @iamwill plays Journey than for the Sesame Street theme song," Mr. Epstein wrote on Twitter.

Based on his other tweets from the event, Mr. Epstein clearly wasn't impressed with will.i.am's performance.

"So what is will.i.am 's talent again?" he asked.

will.i.am also made music for the president during the 2008 election. In February of that year he released a song, "Yes We Can," with lyrics based on one of Mr. Obama's campaign speeches. That song seems to have gone over much better than his performance today. The star-studded "Yes We Can" video, which featured appearances from a slew of celebrities including; Scarlett Johansson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Nick Cannon and John Legend went on to be seen by more than 24 million people on YouTube.

This morning, the Obama campaign released a web video mocking Mr. Romney for threatening to cut funding to PBS and take Big Bird off the air. Sesame Workshop, the foundation that creates the kids' show, responded with a two-sentence statement asking the Obama to remove the ad on the grounds they are "a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization" that doesn't "endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns."

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One this afternoon, President Obama's campaign press secretary, Jen Psaki, said they are "reviewing" that request. She also addressed the Romney campaign's criticism that the Big Bird attack is exactly the kind of "small" tactic President Obama denounced in 2008. Ms. Psaki insisted the president's focus throughout this campaign has been on "serious issues."

"You've been out with the President the last few days, all of you have been. And 99 percent of his remarks are about his plans for fighting for the middle class, his plans for making sure that young people have the opportunity to go to college, to have access to affordable health care.," said Ms. Psaki. "You heard him last night and you'll hear him again today lay out the difference between his view on Iraq and the right steps we took in drawing down troops there, and Mitt Romney's doubling down on maybe we should have left troops...several thousand troops in Iraq, instead of what the President's approach was. This election is about serious issues.  That's what the President talks about every day."

Steve Martin making his wad of paper and endorsing Bob Kerrey. (Photo: YouTube)

Bob Kerrey's chances of retaking his old Nebraska Senate seat may be "bleak," but perhaps he can cheer himself with this hilarious endorsement video his friend, comedian Steve Martin, made for his campaign. Mr. Martin's clip is a spoof instructional video entitled "Steve Martin Masters Home Crafts, Endorses Bob Kerrey" in which he gives viewers directions for "how to make a wad of paper."

"You may know me as the actor and comedian, but did you know I'm also a home crafts expert?" Mr. Martin asks as the video begins. "Today, I'm going to show you how to make a wad of paper. A wad of paper can be a lot of fun just to play with around the house or maybe toss expertly into a trash can but who wants to go down to a fancy office building and root around in their dumpster tO find a really good one?"

In the video, Mr. Martin focuses on his paper wadding instructions rather than directly discussing Mr. Kerrey, who has previously served as both governor and senator of Nebraska, but he has an unseen person display pieces of paper with messages outlining his endorsement of the Democrat.

"My friend, Bob Kerrey, is running for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska. He is a principled man whom I have known and respected for many years," the text in the ad reads. "Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, he deserves your vote because ... he cares about the people of Nebraska ... he considers both sides of every issue to determine what is best ... and he has already served Nebraska successfully as your governor and senator for 16 years. But most of all ... He is sane. And his ideas are workable."

Mr. Martin isn't from Nebraska, but he has known Mr. Kerrey for over a decade. The politician presided over Mr. Martin's 2007 wedding ceremony to writer Anne Stringfield. Mr. Kerrey is currently trailing incumbent Senator Deb Fisher in the polls by a wide sixteen point margin.

Watch Mr. Martin's endorsement video below.

Lena Dunham (Photo: Getty)

Lena Dunham, the star of HBO's hipster coming-of-age comedy Girls, has already dabbled in film, magazine writing and literature, but she seems to increasingly be adding local political activism to her resume. Last night, Ms. Dunham took to Twitter to express her support for the Paid Sick Days bill, which many politicos believe has been unfairly stalled by Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

"I'm always sick or convinced I'm sick. A flu shouldn't cost you your job. That’s why I support #paidsickdays U Can 2," Ms. Dunham wrote before including a link to an online petition asking Ms. Quinn to allow the bill to come to a vote on the floor of the City Council.

This isn't Ms. Dunham's first Twitter-fueled foray into local politics. In July, Ms. Dunham encouraged her followers to attend a series of dinners hosted by the liberal PAC Downtown 4 Democracy, which is dedicated to unseating a targeted list of Tea Party congressional incumbents. She also extended her support for Downtown 4 Democracy beyond the digital realm and actually attended one of the events in person.

Ms. Dunham's political causes have probably-not-coincidentally coincided with the interests of her close friend Audrey Gelman, who is the press secretary for Manhattan borough president and potential 2013 mayoral candidate Scott Stringer. Ms. Gelman sits on Downtown 4 Democracy's board and her boss is a staunch supporter of the paid sick days legislation.

Arnold Schwarzenegger mugging for the cameras at McNally-Jackson (Photo: Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke)

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger held an impromptu book signing at indie bookstore McNally-Jackson in Nolita this afternoon. Mr. Schwarzenegger announced the surprise signing via Twitter and in a note on Facebook leading a crowd of over 100 almost exclusively male fans to rush downtown to shake the Governator’s large hand and have him sign copies of his tome Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's arrival was preceded by a surprisingly mellow soundtrack featuring Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen. Just about five minutes after the scheduled start of the signing, Mr. Schwarzenegger strolled in, wearing a dark suit, cowboy boots with an Americana pattern and a skull ring nearly as large as his finger. The body builder-turned-politician then sat down to autograph his autobiography at a table next to a cardboard cutout of him in his prime (i.e., flexing in a bikini).

“Thank you so much for putting this together so quickly,” whispered a publicist from Simon & Schuster, the book’s publisher.

Although the Governator’s handlers claimed the event was planned last night, bookstore staff told The Observer they were given a head’s up about the signing late last week.

“You working out? You look pumped up,” Mr. Schwarzengger said as he shook hands, signed books and posed for pictures with fans.

“You know anything about watches? This is a Legacy,” Mr. Schwarzenegger told one fan who complimented the timepiece sticking out from the cuff of his suit jacket. Apparently, the Legacy watch is a good choice for those with large forearms, as it dwarfed Mr. Schwarzenegger’s sizeable wrist.

The Governor was not supposed to pose for pictures or sign anything other than books, but he generously did both.

Reporters were allowed in a small roped off area adjacent to Mr. Schwarzenegger's table and informed they would not be permitted to ask questions. One brave soul from Inside Edition attempted to circumvent the ban.

“You were great on GMA,” she yelled before being gently reminded the Governor was not speaking with the press.

Probably due to the crackdown on reporters, the only remote reference to the love child scandal Ms. Schwarzenegger endured last year at the signing was a fan who said to him, “What happened happened...You are doing the right thing.”

“Thanks. Have a nice day,” the Governor mumbled, before posing for yet another cellphone picture.

Outside the event, where the line of Mr. Schwarzenegger's admirers snaked around Prince Street and more media staked out the signing, it was a different story. Another Inside Edition reporter and a cameraman interviewed fans who exited the signing and asked their thoughts on the Governator's past transgressions.

"You can't judge somebody," said one man who identified himself as a member of an online Schwarzenegger fan club.

"Yes you can!" shouted another man who had been standing in the street watching the proceedings.

An earpiece-clad member of Mr. Schwarzenegger's security team kept watch over the line, enforcing a rule that only those who purchased books could have an audience with the Governator and helping several bewildered patrons who showed up to shop at McNally-Jackson with no idea they were walking into an autograph signing. At one point, we overheard him on the phone with a colleague saying, "Find me a cigar store."

Knowing Mr. Schwarzenegger is a big fan of fine, hand-rolled cigars, we piped in and recommended nearby Mulberry Street Cigars in Little Italy. The security staffer dispensed Mr. Schwarzenegger's personal assistant to check out the cigar shop.

Inside, all 162 copies of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s memoir in stock at McNally-Jackson sold out before the line finished. Fans who were unable to buy books asked if they could pre-order with the store or online and still get pictures with the Governator. The security team informed them there wouldn't be enough time, but, in an attempt to alleviate the disappointment, Mr. Schwarzenegger posed with his last remaining admirers.

One of his handlers told him he had to retake the picture because it was too blurry.

“So don’t shake,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said. “Somebody is schvitzing.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be back,” somebody said, as the Governor and his entourage departed the bookstore.

Outside, Mr. Schwarzenegger entered his car without taking questions from any of the assembled media. Thinking that, perhaps he and his team had taken us up on our cigar store recommendation, we headed down Mulberry Street to see if we might have another shot to speak with the Governator.

When we arrived, we found Mulberry Street Cigars had the lights off and was closed for the day. It seemed both The Observer and the cigar store missed our respective shots at having a moment with Mr. Schwarzenegger.