Raising Political Spirits

Ah, a newbie. How quickly he'll get sucked in.

You move to the city to read European literature and before you know it you're sitting on the floor in someone's living room chugging a Yuengling every time the camera pans to Ted Kennedy. Your roommates are aides, or aides to aides, so you start attending the Drinking Liberally happy hours at Timberlake's. You succumb to it gradually; political chitchat is the best social lubricant in town -- politics + booze, even better.

You wonder, on the first night you bypass "Grey's Anatomy" in favor of an Obama meet-up, whether this is really you. It's so easy to meet people this way in a city that is otherwise cold and fast. Someone always wants to invite you to watch some concession speech or some caucus results. You never knew there were so many things to watch; never knew there were so many C-SPAN channels to flip through. It's good to be part of the group.

Still, you were sort of curious to see what happened to Sloan and that new heart doctor.

How did you get here?

You rationalize your behavior:

"D.C. seems to be a lot about multi-tasking," says Kreider. Parties like this "kill two birds with one stone. You have to watch political coverage anyway, you might as well do it with other people and have a good time. It's fun."

It's inevitable.

When Josh Nelson, 26, lived in Cincinnati, he hosted a weekly college night at a local bar. The activities centered on his two passions: music and sports. He moved to the District about a year ago to take a job with the National Wildlife Federation, and, through forces he can't quite articulate, shifted his social focus to politics. He now co-hosts political blog TheSeminal.com's weekly happy hour. "The majority of my friends are people I met through talking about politics," he says. He enjoys the ability to combine socializing with networking. And even if he moves to another city, he says, "I think I'll be in this scene for the long haul."

Then again, he is deep in the thick of it, without the dubious clarity of the newly arrived or the receding, fuzzy memories of ex-Washingtonians. Then again, perhaps he does not see that this scene, in this mega-concentration, exists nowhere else but here.

Lisa Lindberg, 27, has fond, if fading, memories of the 2004 election: She held a John Kerry fundraiser in her Logan Circle studio apartment, complete with homemade swag bags for the big donors. She watched every debate, usually with friends, and attended a bawdy election result party at the Chi-Cha Lounge with a group of increasingly drunk revelers.

Then in 2005 she moved to Minneapolis and enrolled in law school.