Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, and his wife Jennifer Rothman at the Garden State Inaugural Gala tonight at the Washington Court Hotel. [KEVIN R. WEXLER / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER]
Two jetliners or a dozen Cessnas could fit inside the Washington Convention Center room, where 7,000 guests from New Jersey and a half-dozen other Mid-Atlantic states paid $150 to party at an “official ball” tonight.
Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, wandered near the area where the press is penned away from the guests shortly after Wyclef Jean began an Obama-ized version of “No Woman, No Cry” at 8:30 p.m.
The Northeast regional co-chairman of Obama for America, Rothman was trying to find out when Barack and Michelle Obama — whose expected presence tonight made it an “official ball” — would arrive. After hearing the press had been told it would be around midnight, Rothman decided to go to the Garden State Inaugural ball, hosted by the New Jersey State Society.
“That way I can see my New Jersey people and still get back here,” he said.
Jean played about four songs before turning the crowd over to a DJ. The headline band for the evening was The Dead, made up of the core of the Grateful Dead.
— Herb Jackson
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