NAMES & FACES

Political Pacesetters

Who's minding the Hill this morning?

More than 30 members of Congress and various judges are -- or have already, depending on what time of day you read the paper -- lacing up and heading for the finish line in this morning's ACLI Capital Challenge. (They even let members of the media run, too.)

Huffing and puffing in the three-miler, which starts and ends in Anacostia Park, will be Chief Judge Paul Michel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sens. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who has never missed a Capital Challenge in 24 years, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), and Reps. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.). Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) will be keeping an extra close eye on Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), as Sununu swiped Ensign's Senate champ title last year in the race. That tan quickster Ensign had won the year before.

Jeff Darman , director/founder of the race, joked to us yesterday: "A lot of people ask me what kind of security precautions we take, and this year I'm particularly worried about keeping judges and some members of Congress separated."

But perhaps a better point comes from Bob Stevenson , who's a spokesman for Frist when he's not pounding the pavement himself in the Capital Challenge.

It's a special day, he says, "because it's one of the few times in the year the White House, media, Congress and the judiciary all run in the same direction -- that is, until the turnaround."

A Media Feeding Frenzy

You could say that lunching is to Washington what casting calls are to Hollywood. So we can't wait to see who lands the starring role this weekend when Washington's ultimate power luncher is cast.

As part of a charity bash for Horton's Kids, a Capitol Hill nonprofit that provides mentoring to kids in Anacostia, there'll be a silent auction to have lunch with nine media types: Sam Donaldson , Al Hunt , Jonathan Karl , Mort Kondracke , Norah O'Donnell , George Stephanopoulos , Tucker Carlson , Andrea Koppel and Juan Williams .

Willingly eating with a journalist? Well, it is for a good cause. And it's better than breaking bread with a blogger.

Noted . . .

"I'm going to have three girls and twin boys," the recently engaged Nicole Richie declared to British Glamour mag (we presume she means with her fiance, DJ AM ). But -- and this is our favorite quote -- she adds: "I don't cook and I don't clean." Talk about the simple life . . . LA Weekly columnist Nikki Finke sums up conservative-turned-liberal Arianna Huffington's new blog, the Huffington Post, like this: "It's the box-office equivalent of 'Gigli,' 'Ishtar' and 'Heaven's Gate' rolled into one." Ouch . . . And days after first lady Laura Bush sarcastically branded her husband "Mr. Excitement" because he goes to bed early, it seems the president is trying to put his best foot forward. " George said last night, 'Seldom do we have a night like that,' " Laura Bush said of this week's stop at Tbilisi, Georgia. "We really got to have fun, stay in the downtown, go to a restaurant . . . The dancing was unbelievable."

. . . and Quoted

"You know what [the late former Arizona congressman] Mo Udall would say: 'Presidential ambition is a disease that can only be cured by embalming fluid.' "

-- Sen. John McCain , to Men's Journal, on a White House bid in 2008.

-- Compiled by Anne Schroeder from staff and wire reports