For Anna Wintour, Power Is Always in Vogue Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images Anna Wintour, right, and Sarah Jessica Parker, at a 2009 fashion show, are fund-raisers for the president. WHEN Anna Wintour was in Paris for Fashion Week in March, there was one topic the Vogue editor couldn't stop talking about. And it had nothing to do with the winter collections. Who was going to win the French presidential election in a few weeks, she wondered aloud to several seat mates in the front row. Catch Ms. Wintour in New York today, and you might just get an earful about the crucial swing states for President Obama or the pitiful Spanish and Greek economies. And don't even get her started on the international fabric trade. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, recalled a conversation she had with Ms. Wintour on the subject. "She said, "You may not realize this, but the tariffs and the treaties we have in place fundamentally affect the ability to provide various goods to various markets at an affordable rate," " Senator Gillibrand said. After that meeting, Senator Gillibrand emerged from Vogue's offices high above Times Square with a list of stores and vendors that Ms. Wintour suggested she visit so she could better understand how trade affects businesses in the city. For those who know Ms. Wintour only as the icy, inscrutable character obsessed over in the tabloids and satirized on film, it can be impossible to separate her from the fashion runways she terrorizes from behind those dark sunglasses. But she has emerged as something more: an engaged politico and valuable asset to President Obama and his re-election effort. This is Ms. Wintour's second campaign working as an Obama bundler, those well-connected and highly motivated wranglers of cash for political candidates. Her latest effort for the president came on Thursday evening at a 50-person, $40,000-a-plate dinner she co-hosted at the West Village town house of Sarah Jessica Parker. During a question-and-answer session with Mr. Obama, Ms. Wintour had command of the room. She called on Meryl Streep, who asked the president what he could do to attract more talented people to government jobs. Though Ms. Streep professed she probably already knew: increase salaries. Michael Kors, the designer, asked about same-sex marriage. And Trey Laird, the advertising excecutive, wanted to know about tax policy. All the while, Ms. Wintour sat and listened. In 2008 she helped collect an estimated $200,000 to Mr. Obama's election efforts. She also co-hosted two fund-raisers, one with Calvin Klein, another with Ms. Parker. The president visited her home on Sullivan Street in 2010 for a mixer, where guests like Donna Karan and Calvin Klein paid up to $30,400 each to mingle. She teamed up with the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein late last summer for another Obama event at Mr. Weinstein's home. The fee was $35,800. "I can tell you she is incredibly concerned about where this country is going," Mr. Weinstein said. Friends have described her as a staunch Democrat, a bit of a leftie, as one put it. The devil reads Pravda? She donated to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and Hillary Rodham Clinton's senatorial efforts. But her political involvement has also aided more provincial concerns. She has put money and time into helping state legislators in New York who voted to legalize same-sex marriage. And in the 1990s she was instrumental in mobilizing the fashion industry's campaign to fight AIDS. Politics has always surrounded Ms. Wintour, whether by choice or by birth. Her father, Charles Wintour, was the editor of the London Evening Standard. Her brother Patrick is the politics editor of The Guardian. The editor she is closest to at Condé Nast, the conglomerate that runs Vogue, Vanity Fair and other widely read magazines, is David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. This year she approached Ms. Parker about joining forces. Her pitch, according to one person who knows them both, was business-minded and strategic: to justify the $40,000-a-person price tag, they would need the star power that the two of them could deliver as a team. Her political activity has led to speculation that she might be angling for a plum patronage position. An ambassadorship, perhaps. London? Paris? Her friends say the chatter is completely unfounded, just as it was four years ago. "She has absolutely no interest in an ambassadorship," a close friend said this week, insisting on anonymity to protect that friendship. I can say that definitively. Cathy Horyn and Eric Wilson contributed reporting. Alan Delaqueriere contributed research.