The fund-raising outfit that helps elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate has opened the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Online Store "just in time for the holidays."

Yes, there are the typical campaign buttons you'd expect. But besides being the first in your neighborhood with a fashionable DSCC mug, this year's holidays also can be celebrated with a framed photo of President Lyndon Johnson, conferring with his secretary of defense. That would be Robert Strange McNamara, an architect of the American troop escalation in Vietnam.

"Every purchase helps get Democrats elected," the DSCC says.

Nineteen Democratic-held seats are up for grabs in elections next year,  out of 38 races, and Democrats will have to fight hard not to lose seats in the 2010 mid-term elections.

Republicans shouldn't feel left out in the cold on gift-giving. There are plenty of websites offering  up ideas that showcase their stars.

For those who really want to get into the holiday spirit, the Sarah Palin wine glass or "can cooler" might be right up their alley.

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Photo credit: Reuters from Defense Department handout (McNamara)

"Immoral" and "villains" are among the words she has used to describe the companies for their opposition to a publicly run health plan.  And she has castigated their policies of refusing to take care of pre-existing medical conditions and capping benefits of cancer patients.

"The glory days are coming to an end," Pelosi warned those companies, vowing to build support for the bill she's pushing.

But will the tough talk bring to an end insurance industry campaign contributions to Pelosi?

For the current 2009-2010 election cycle, insurance industry contributions to Pelosi total $41,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Only health professionals have given her more money, $113,000, according to the group, which tracks campaign contributions to lawmakers and lobbying activities. In the 2007-2008, of the top 20 industries contributing to her, insurance contributions ranked fifth, totaling $177,000 out of a total $3.78 million raised.

"As the Speaker's opposition to the health insurance companies being in charge of America's health care shows, there is no link between political contributions and positions on policy," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi.

Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, said of the mismatch between the contributions and Pelosi's criticisms: "They have a right to donate money to her.  She has a right speak her mind."

He notes that insurance industry campaign contributions to Pelosi's re-election campaigns and a separate "leadership" campaign fund have risen dramatically in the last couple years, as healthcare reform prospects have risen.

"It is possible they may look in a different direction" if they conclude she's not going to be "receptive to their influence," Levinthal adds.

Cue up Bruce Spingsteen and "Glory days, well, they'll pass you by."

Photo credit: REUTERS/Yuri Gripas (Pelosi at July 22 news conference)

The procedural maneuver to delay progress on the bill had been threatened by Republicans, who oppose the "cap and trade" program Democrats constructed to gradually reduce industry's greenhouse gas emissions.

In the end, Republicans didn't resort to the delay.

But not wanting to waste the talents of the speed-reader Chairman Henry Waxman hired, the committee gave Douglas Wilder his moment in the sun by asking him to read out loud hundreds of pages contained in a Republican counter-proposal that everyone knew was doomed.

Sporting an orange-colored shirt, patterned tie and brushed-back hair, Wilder took off, sounding almost like an auctioneer.

The words flew by, sometimes almost  unintelligible and too fast for even the most competent note-takers in the hearing room filled with lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists.

"Section one...short title...energy production and conservation act...table of contents...federal...efficiency..."

After about 40 seconds, Joe  Barton, the senior Republican on the committee who played along with the moment of levity, signalled he had enough of the fast-talking Wilder.

Amid a burst of applause and laughter that rippled through the room, Barton folded. "I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with," said the Texan in his soft drawl. "If he'll just work on his accent a bit, he'll have a bright future," Barton said.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Waxman at a House hearing)

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Demonstrators for clean energy hold a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 2) 

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters in an interview that it could be many months before all legal challenges are exhausted. "I don't think we're going to see the end to this matter any time soon," McConnell said.

For those who have forgotten about this cliff-hanger: Coleman, the Democrat-turned-Republican first-term senator running for reelection, lagged behind Democratic comedian-author-Franken by only 225 votes after a recount of nearly 2.4 million ballots cast for the two.

Legal challenges followed and the two candidates are awaiting a ruling any day now by a three-judge panel in Minnesota.

But McConnell said that won't be the end of it. He said Coleman is likely to employ a Bush v. Gore argument and try to convince the courts that there needs to be a uniform standard of counting ballots throughout the state.

It "will be litigated out not only in state court but potentially in federal court as well," McConnell predicted.

Asked whether he was concerned that Minnesota is going so long without a full team in the U.S. Senate, McConnell replied, "Yeah, it's a shame."

In the meantime, Democrats are two votes short of a filibuster proof majority in the U.S. Senate that's needed to advance most major legislation, instead of the one vote short they would be if Franken was declared the winner based on his narrow margin.

Senator Dick Durbin, the number-two Democrat in the Senate, is getting impatient.

"There reaches a point where Minnesota is entitled to two senators and if it keeps coming up Al Franken the winner, Al Franken the winner,  I think it's time for the national Republican Party to move on." Asked whether he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid might just try to seat Franken at some point soon, Durbin replied,  "I'm not ready to say that."

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Mitch Dumke (Franken and Reid meeting in January.)

None other than Mikhail Gorbachev -- the last leader of the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics.

Gorbachev, in town to speak at a Woodrow Wilson Center forum on the evolution of Russia's constitution, will join on Thursday Senate Democrats at one of their weekly closed-door luncheons where he is expected to give his perspective on international affairs.

Some Republicans have been hurling the "socialist" epithet at Obama, complaining that his big-spending economic stimulus plan, Wall Street bailouts and moves to expand the federal government's role into health care, while also proposing tax hikes for the wealthy, were signs that he's abandoned the capitalist system that is reeling from a global economic meltdown.

Gorby, as he was affectionately known in the late 1980s as he opened his failing country to market reforms, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner who joins an interesting list of past guests at the Senate Democrats' lunch. Others have included Republican Vice President Dick Cheney (sometimes dubbed "Darth Vader") and Rupert Murdoch, the global media tycoon who has strong conservative credentials.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Alexander Natruskin (Gorbachev at a news conference in December.)

They are the "Mod Squad," a group of about 15 Senate Democrats, some of them freshmen, whose tentative name reflects their moderate political leanings and is borrowed from a 1960s television drama.

"The purpose is not to be adversarial to the White House," ringleader Ben Nelson of Nebraska told reporters on Thursday. Yes, it's the very same Nelson who helped broker the compromise on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

But Nelson said many in the group are worried about the overall size of Obama's budget -- $3.55 trillion just for next year -- and others fret about specific initiatives within the budget.

With Republicans already warning they could boycott the Democrats' budget, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just may have to pay attention to this group of moderate Democrats if he wants to get a budget passed this spring.

There's plenty at stake: Obama's budget proposal calls for significant expansions of environmental and education programs, establishing new accounts to expand health insurance to those who can't afford it and to combat global warming, along with bringing U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

"We don't even have a name yet, or a mascot," Nelson quipped. But when asked about possible names, he was quick to blurt out a possibility: "Mod Squad. I just threw that out."

No details yet on specific programs the gang might want to arrest in the budget.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator Ben Nelson with reporters last month)

When it was released on Thursday, the budget President Barack Obama unveiled sparked a war of words all over the capital. The disagreements were so profound, it's almost as if people were looking at two entirely different documents.

Take the impact of Obama's budget on small businesses which, like many in the United States, are reeling from the deep economic recession.

"It is not just misguided, but dangerous to raise taxes on small businesses and families that can't afford to pay," warned Eric Cantor, the number-two Republican in the House of Representatives.

His fellow conservative, Representative Mike Pence agreed. "The administration's budget raises taxes on almost every American. America's hard-working small businesses, family farms...," he said.

Obama's budget calls for raising taxes on those with annual incomes over $250,000.

But Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said not so fast. 

"This budget is very good for small business. The claim that it hurts small business...is often repeated but inaccurate."

Greenstein cited data that only nine percent of people with small businesses have incomes over $250,000 a year. And most of those people, he said, "are wealthy investors who invest in the businesses, not those who operate them."

Instead of reeling from Obama's budget proposals, Greenstein said small businesses will fall in love with it.

Among benefits he cited: around 90 percent of small business owners would benefit from Obama's proposed middle-class tax cuts and they also would revel in the elimination of the capital gains tax for small businesses.

Greenstein also said small businesses would benefit from Obama's plan to expand health insurance to those who cannot afford it.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Stelios Varias (Copies of Obama's budget outline.)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy says he'll hold confirmation hearings early next month on Obama's choice of Eric Holder to be the nation's top law enforcement officer -- attorney general.

Speaking to reporters after a private meeting with Holder, Leahy called the former Clinton administration deputy attorney general "a superb man" and "a prosecutor's prosecutor."

Leahy said he expects Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to press Holder on his role in former President Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich just before Clinton left office in 2001. Karl Rove, an ex-aide to President George W. Bush recently "gave marching orders" to do so, Leahy said.

At the time Clinton issued the pardon, Holder said his view toward it was "neutral, leaning toward favorable."

While living abroad, Rich was indicted in 1983 on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran. Rich's wife was a large contributor to the Democratic Party and to the presidential library that was being built to house Clinton's papers.

If confirmed by the Senate as expected, Holder would become the first black U.S. attorney general and head of the Justice Department, which was rocked by scandal during the tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

With the next Congress set to convene on Jan. 6, Leahy said Holder's confirmation hearing likely would be held the first week lawmakers are back, with the goal of a Senate confirmation vote on Jan. 20, the same day Obama is to become the 44th U.S. president.

The 57-year-old Holder is a former D.C. Superior Court judge whose good looks often set jurors' hearts aflutter.

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Photo credit: Top: Reuters/John Gress (Holder listens as Obama announces his national security team Dec. 1 in Chicago); Bottom: Reuters/Larry Downing (Holder meets with Leahy on Capitol Hill Dec. 8  )

With Democrats in control of both Congress and the White House starting Jan. 20, high-ranking Republicans in the outgoing Bush administration will be less marketable for boardrooms positions, according to the association.

"If a party is shut out of both congressional houses plus the executive branch, as Republicans will be, its members' chance of joining the board of a large corporation is about 30 percent less than it would otherwise be," said Richard Lester of Texas A&M University, who carried out a study for the Academy of Management.

Helping Paulson and several of his White House colleagues, though, is that Cabinet members are the most likely among retiring governmental officials to be recruited to serve on corporate boards.

"They were more than twice as likely as former senators, and more than five times as likely as former representatives, to be appointed corporate directors during the 16 years covered by the research -- 1988 through 2003," according to the association.

Not to pick on Paulson -- there are more than a dozen Cabinet members -- but he has become one of the highest-profile, most controversial of Bush's aides for the way he has been handling the $700 billion financial industry bailout.

But Paulson's a survivor. This former Nixon administration official left government the first time around in 1973 (like a lot of his colleagues) and quickly worked his way up the ladder at investment firm Goldman Sachs, finally serving as chairman and CEO when he got his Treasury job.

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing  (U.S Treasury Secretary Paulson with President Bush outside Treasury Building in Washington)