Sarah Palin puts herself and husband Todd up for auction

There is nothing quite so stark as a charity auction to determine how prestigious and popular a celebrity really is. So how much is anyone prepared to pay for a dinner with Sarah Palin, her husky-racing husband Todd and four friends?

A year ago, dinner with history's most talked about vice-presidential candidate might have gone for even as much as the $2.1 million somebody paid to dine with investment guru Warren Buffet. Today, with Palin no longer Governor of Alaska, and facing ridicule from her daughter’s former boyfriend – Levi Johnston made a scathing attack on her in Vanity Fair - dinner with Todd and Sarah might not be such a hot ticket.

That hasn't stopped Palin offering the dinner as top prize in a 10-day charity auction on eBay to be opened on September 8, with the opening bid set at $25,000. All money goes to Ride2Recovery, which helps wounded military veterans with their rehabilitation through cycling schemes.

There is one major catch with the prize – the dinner will be in Palin's home town, Wasilla, deepest Alaska, and the successful bidder will have to get themselves there at their own expense.

Which is why anyone hungry to meet a Republican power player might be more tempted by the cheaper option of lunch for three with Karl Rove, the man whose grasp of the dark arts of politics helped to propel George W Bush to two terms in the White House. Lunch with Rove and three friends will be at Bobby Van's Steakhouse in Washington DC, and bidding starts at $7,500.

Since leaving the White House in 2007, Rove has been busy with his new career as a media pundit and speech-maker. It hasn't all been easy: while addressing the University of Iowa last year, two students attempted to put him under a citizen's arrest.