Politics at the podium just part of the plan or really party crashing?

As an enlightened young man of 2010, Alexi Giannoulias admits that he is a great fan of the ladies' book club favorite "Three Cups of Tea." Mr. Giannoulias, single for now, can't even blame his wife for making him read the book.

Maybe Giannoulias, Illinois state treasurer, can identify with the stirring uphill odyssey of a mountain climber's transformation to humanitarian. After all, he is the Democratic candidate for Illinois' U.S. Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama.

"Three Cups of Tea" is the touching, true-to-life account of and by Greg Mortenson. The title of the best seller comes from a Tibetan proverb that says, "The first time you share tea you are a stranger. The second time you take tea you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea you become family."

Saturday night, Mr. Mortenson held a Chicago fundraiser for his Central Asia Institute, a not-for-profit organization that carries out his dream of building schools for destitute children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So far, CAI has funded the construction of almost 150 schools in Central Asia, many of them serving girls who have historically been shunned in those countries.

About 1,300 people attended the dinner at the Hyatt O'Hare in Rosemont, to support Mortenson and his noble effort and to hear him speak.

The program, according to Mortenson, was intentionally nonpolitical. A keen negotiator with Pakistani tribal leaders, Mortenson seems aware that the infiltration of local politics into an international fundraiser can be untidy - like your necktie appears after dropping a spoonful of Sheer Khurma pudding on it during dessert.

Saturday night, even though no politicians were listed on the program and event coordinators said no politicians were invited to speak, Mr. Giannoulias did.

He read a prepared speech that was largely forgettable, never mentioned Afghanistan or Pakistan that I heard and mainly focused on the importance of funding public education - always such a controversial subject.

"His remarks weren't political. His speech wasn't political," said Kathleen Strand, director of communications for the Giannoulias for Senate campaign on Sunday.

People sitting around me at the dinner seemed stunned that Mr. Giannoulias was on the podium and speaking at all. Organizers of the event said that Giannoulias had been told politicians were not welcome to make speeches, that it wasn't that type of event.

There must have been a failure to communicate, said Giannoulias' communication director.

"He was invited in his official capacity as state treasurer. We were invited by the organizers, actually by the chairman of the event," said Ms. Strand. She observed that Giannoulias attended a reception before the dinner and had a nice conversation with Mr. Mortenson.

Giannoulias is a "friend of the Pakistani community," declared Strand, who previously worked on the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign for president. "We'd never muscle our way into something like that."

However the benign remarks came to be, it doesn't take any real muscle to mount the podium at a fundraiser for an organization built on peace. Not the kind of Chicago muscle that has dogged Giannoulias since he became a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Perhaps his campaign officials grew testy when I inquired about the unscheduled speech Saturday night because it came at the end of a dreadful week for the campaign. There were widespread news stories that Giannoulias' family bank had loaned millions of dollars to organized crime figures.

So they probably welcomed an appearance at an event celebrating "Three Cups of Tea" and a man whose mission is peace and school-building.

"I just don't want this to be overblown in any way," Strand said. "I don't think this should be a party-crashing insinuation."

Certainly there are no allegations of Secret Service breaches, guest lists being ignored or socialites being photographed with the author.

But long after Giannoulias left the room and Greg Mortenson, the featured speaker, took the stage, there was something of a party crashing allegation. Mr. Mortenson didn't exactly use that unflattering term. But at the top of his remarks - delayed in part because of the Giannoulias appearance - Mortenson did feel the need to offer an explanation to the large crowd.

Acknowledging that Giannoulias is a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Mortenson said that the fundraiser was not intended to be a political event and that politicians had not been invited to speak.

Strand discounted those public comments, saying that Mortenson needed to distance himself and the nonprofit status of his organization.

"In the climate we're in he needed to make it clear," she said. "Even if he hadn't been running (for the Senate) he still would've been invited. This invitation was extended a week ago. I'm not sure why this is Alexi's fault."

Even if it isn't his fault, Giannoulias may want to run by Starbucks while waiting for that second cup of tea.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by e-mail at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie