a prominent politician (out of office now) once complained to me about all the attention a different prominent politician was getting. This was the first conversation I had with this person.

politicians is weird

related: as a sort of "know your place, new arrival" hazing, a few dems completely lied to a reporter about what a new arrival to congress had said at a meeting. this person tried to correct the record to the reporter, but the reporter refused because those people wouldn't lie

anyway these are strange people and some of them are complete assholes and it's going to be jarring for a new arrival to "the good party" to realize it's a nest of vipers, and that's just the electeds, before we get to the staffers

who even knows what they're jockeying for, the leadership has basically nuked any possibility for a house member to anything useful before being there for 10 terms, and probably 3 terms (18 years) for the senate

earmarks are out, important legislation often doesn't move through committees in a meaningful way, there are never any real conference bills, and the leadership is 80

While I'm ranting: regarding primaries, if you represent a safe D seat and you you're worried about a primary that means you haven't figured out how to appeal to democrats in a democratic district. you deserve to lose.

Also, after so many electeds went all in for Joe Kennedy's primary against Markey, they can STFU about primaries sapping our vital essences, or whatever.