Alan Grayson, the Democratic Congressman from Florida who's rapidly making a name for himself as the sort of liberal analogue to Michelle Bachman, is in some more hot water for calling Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K Street whore.” Anthony Weiner probably had the best line among the various Congressional Democrats rushing to distance themselves from Grayson: “Is th

Some people keep talismans in their wallets to remind them of those they love: a romantic letter, a set of dog tags, a family picture. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has such a token--but it's to remind him of the people he hates.

Nearly everybody was baffled when, half a dozen years ago, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) mounted the strongest resistance to campaign finance reform within the Democratic Party. One CBC member, Al Wynn of Maryland, even co-sponsored (along with then-Ohio Republican and current federal inmate Bob Ney) the counter-measure designed to kill reform. Numerous other Black Caucus members sided with Wynn. "You have the potential for opposites to come together," said Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

Columbus, Ohio

This is shaping up to be the Democrats' year. According to current polls, the party stands to make significant gains in the House, the Senate, and statehouses across the country this November. And it's not hard to see why: the botched Katrina response, high gas prices, scandals in Congress and in the states, and, most of all, the quagmire in Iraq. Discontent with the Bush administration's conduct of the war is affecting even the gubernatorial races. At a recent meeting in a posh Cincinnati suburb, a group of Republicans supporting Democratic candidate Ted Strickland voiced to him their unhappiness with the war. "They expressed great concern about the war and its cost," Strickland tells me--"not just in terms of dollars, but lives and national prestige."