What makes for a successful political fund-raising dinner? According to Sidney Captain, Republican finance chairman in Baltimore County, Md., and one of the G.O.P.'s most experienced banqueteers, the answer is beef, booze and "hostessesmake them slender and pretty." How to make a form letter appear to be personally signed? Well, there is an offset process that produces smudgeable signatures that look exactly as if they had been written in blue ink.
These and other tips from the top were given at a Washington seminar last week for some 500 Young Republicans. Opening the four-day "leadership training" conference was outgoing Republican...