White House Correspondents'Association Dinner Weekend #WHCD

Video from 2011 White House Garden Brunch

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WASHINGTON–The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is Saturday night and on Friday a lot of people were out late with pre-parties marking the weekend where show business celebrities mix with political figures and journalists. President Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel are headlining the dinner and I am told Obama’s presentation includes video gags and the usual, well placed jabs at himself.

A small sampling of the spotted at the Google/Hollywood Reporter, Time/People, Our Voices, Celebrating Diversity in Media parties Friday night: Arianna Huffington, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, Obama finance chief Rufus Gifford, Romney top strategist Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney top legal counsel Ben Ginsburg, Romney spokesman Ryan Williams, Romney strategist Kevin Madden, White House communications chief Dan Pfeiffer, former White House Obama personal aid Reggie Love, CNN’s Piers Morgan, fresh from an interview with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at Von Steuben High School earlier this week, actor Richard Kind, Panetta chief of staff Jeremy Bash, former Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley, Democratic strategists Anita Dunn and Hilary Rosen and a variety of MSNBC show hosts.

On Saturday the big pre-dinner event is the garden brunch in Georgetown (see video above) hosted by Tammy Haddad, Ted Greenberg, Kevin Sheekey, Hilary Rosen, Clarke Camper, Mark Ein, Alex Castellanos, Anita Dunn, Bill Knapp, David Adler, Steve McMahon and Franco Nuschese.

This year, Chicagoan Susan Axelrod–wife of Obama chief strategist David Axelrod–and AOL co-founder Steve Case and his wife Jean are being honored at the brunch, first hosted by Haddad 19 years ago. Susan Axelrod is the founder–and driving force– behind CURE–Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy.

The brunch helps raise money for CURE and The White Ribbon Alliance.

Emanuel is attending the dinner; he is a guest of Bloomberg News.

Check out the White House Correspondents’ Weekend Insider site HERE.

For a briefing on the parties, click HERE for the POLITICO story.

C-SPAN will be covering the dinner HERE.