Inside Freshman Orientation on Capitol Hill

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: In House, New Class Arrives for Lessons in Lawmaking
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: November 15, 2006



....With the race in Florida’s 13th Congressional District too close to call, the two contestants, Vern Buchanan and Christine Jennings, both decided to come to freshman orientation for new House members here this week....

So it went for the 40-odd new lawmakers, and some would-be lawmakers, with all the inherent awkwardness and inconvenience that comes with any freshman experience....At a party at a local bar on Monday night that one new staff member described as “sweaty,” current Democratic House members instructed new ones about the pecking order for the incoming class. At the top are the “dragon slayers,” the Democrats who took down especially big Republican targets like John E. Sweeney in New York, Richard W. Pombo in California and Curt Weldon in Pennsylvania....

“He’s everything I’m not,” Phil Hare, a new Democratic representative from Illinois, said about Heath Shuler, a former quarterback for the Washington Redskins and newly elected Democrat from North Carolina. “In shape and good-looking.”...

***

The welcome at the White House was “a little surreal, when you’ve been running against them for two years,” said Chris Murphy, a Democrat who beat Representative Nancy L. Johnson in Connecticut....“He said, ‘You beat Chocola,’ ” said Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from Indiana, where the president had campaigned for Republicans, including Mr. Donnelly’s opponent, Representative Chris Chocola.

The president said he had spent a bit of time in South Bend, the heart of Mr. Chocola’s district, Mr. Donnelly said, and “I said, ‘Yes, I’m well aware of that.’ ”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/us/politics/15frosh.html