UPDATED: Candidate Posts Pictures from Private Fundraisers

UPDATE: Del. Barbara Comstock has posted photo albums on her very public Facebook page of her two very private fundraising parties this week.

McLean Patch was told we could not report to the neighbors on the parties attended by Gov. Bob McDonnell (Tuesday) and his wife Maureen (Wednesday) because they were very private.

It was interesting to see a small portion of what the neighbors missed at two of McLean's most expensive addresses.

Thursday Morning: Another day, another eviction from a McLean Republican fundraiser.

For the second evening in a row, Republican candidate Del. Barbara Comstock banned coverage of a fundraiser, thereby denying the neighbors information about her financial backers. Caren Merrick a candidate for the state senate, joined her Wednesday.

Comstock and Merrick staffers rushed to hide nametags of their guests attending a fundraiser at one of McLean's most prestigious addresses.

Pamela Danner, who is running against Comstock and other Democratic candidates have welcomed press coverage of their events, held at equally prestigious addresses. 

Candidates, including Comstock and Merrick, ask for and receive press coverage of their announcements, their endorsements, their views.

Financial contributions are the lifeblood of a campaign. Campaign contributors, who pay up to $5,000 to attend some of the Comstock events, are buying access and influence. McLean Patch attends fundraisers to tell the neighbors who is lending financial support to the candidates.

Comstock (R-34), running for a second term, and Caren Merrick, a businesswoman running for the first time, sent a myriad of notices and invitations to the reception hosted by business couple David and Lorna Gladstone, at the Crest Lane home that overlooks the Potomac River.

Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell headlined the reception highlighting women leaders and Virginia wine.

Cars lined both sides of the long lane from the Gladstone home out to and down Crest Lane in both directions. The valet parkers took cars great distances because of the crowd of supporters.

Danner lives on Crest Lane. Other neighbors include Fred Malek, a major fundraiser and benefactor to the Republican Party, newsman Sam Donaldson, Jay Timmons, the executive vice president of the National Automobile Association, Frank Carlucci, secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration and a director of th Carlyle Group, an influential private equity firm, Peter Fitzgerald a former Republican senator from Illinois and now president of Chain Bridge Bank, and homes belonging to the United Arab Emirates.

Danner  held a fundraiser headlined by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner on Crest Lane in August at the home of real estate developer Al Dwoskin . The home also overlooks the Potomac.

Tuesday evening Amanda Isaacson, Comstock's campaign manager banned McLean Patch from coverage of another elite Republican fundraiser at the Langley home of Bobbi Kilberg, president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Tech Council. Gov. McDonnell was scheduled to appear.

Kilberg graciously invited us in, but Isaacson nixed that gracious invitation.

Wednesday night when we took pictures of the name tags of guests, Comstock and Merrick staffers tried to hide the names and scrambled to physically block the pictures. Tracy Key, Merrick's finance chairman, came out of the house and grabbed our notebook. She is wife of Clinton Key, who has been described as a key GOP operative.

One might ask who are the supporters whose names they are trying to hide from the neighbors?