Check out the June issue of Harper’s Magazine (see link here: alas, it’s a pay site) for your Party Time hostess’ analysis of this carnival thrown last summer by Rep. Eric Cantor’s leadership PAC, Every Republican is Crucial (ERIC PAC).

House Minority Whip Cantor earns his clout with his colleagues the old fashioned way–by raising millions of dollars for himself and other GOPers. In the first three months of this year alone, he raised more than $960,000, doubling his take from the comparable first quarter of the last non-election year, 2007, according to Congressional Quarterly. In 2006, when he led the GOP Battleground Program, the party took in some $25 million.

For his carnival shindig last summer, ERIC PAC rented a 15,000-square-foot party space at Nationals Park, a major league baseball stadium. His guests took batting practice, tossed balls at a dunking booth, hopped on the Moon Bounce, and played video games at the Sony PlayStation Pavillion.

Go to Harper’s to read the piece–and stay tuned here for tidbits that didn’t make it in.

Speaking of babysitting, this piece by Ken Silverstein in Harper’s March 2008 edition is a must read for background on how lawmakers use their campaign funds to pay for all sorts of costs associated with partying—including, yes, babysitting:

As for babysitting, the congressman [Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA)] said that he had asked the FEC for an opinion about that matter, and he had been assured it was appropriate. “We don’t use it often, but we have occasionally,” he told me, adding that he usually paid $100 “if the person comes in and spends the night.” The 2007 tab for $300 was for babysitting when he and his wife were away for a few days at a Republican retreat—at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and Marina.

So let me understand this correctly. If I were a congressional candidate, I could use the campaign money I got from donors—which in McCrery’s case include folks working for the Blackstone Group, General Electric, and New York Life Insturance–and pay for babysitting while I went a played golf on the Chesapeake Bay? Maybe I should reconsider my political career. Except rather than golfing, I’d like to go skiing. Or mountain biking.