Going, going, gone - for $8,390.
That's what a day in New York with Flavia Colgan, the MSNBC commentator and former top staffer to Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, went for this week on eBay.
Since last Friday, Colgan was auctioning herself for charity - with the proceeds going to the Boys and Girls Club of Central Pennsylvania, where she serves on the board.
The highest bidder gets to spend most of today with Colgan as she does television tapings, drops in on political parties, and generally makes the rounds of the town. The date is timed around the annual Pennsylvania Society gathering for Pennsylvania pols in New York.
So after seven days of bidding that started at $150, the winner is . . . Joseph E. Robert Jr., a real estate investment/asset management guru and philanthropist from McLean, Va.
And Robert, whose son recently completed his first tour of duty in Fallujah with the Marines' Third Reconnaissance Battalion, is donating his winnings to two other veterans of the Iraq war: Jon Soltz, 28, of Pittsburgh, and Mike Zacchea of Long Island.
"I feel enormously overwhelmed," Colgan said yesterday after speaking on the phone with Soltz and Zacchea. "They are American heroes. I feel so honored to be spending the day with them."
Colgan, a fast talker rarely at a loss for words, had to stop and collect herself as she spoke of the men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"For a talking-head pundit, I'm actually speechless for once," she said. "These are extraordinary people. I don't even know that I'm worthy of this honor."
Contact staff writer Angela Couloumbis at 717-787-5934 or acouloumbis@phillynews.com.
