Further evidence it's an election year: One of the biggest unions in the country, Service Employees International Union (or S.E.I.U.) is teaming up with MoveOn.org and Amnesty International to expand its campaign against private equity firms. (This is the same group, as you may recall, that staged protests outside the homes of KKR's Henry Kravis and Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein last year.) They've even roped in comedian Lewis Black, who's now appearing in commercials to rail against buyout firms for downsizing companies, taking on too much debt, and treating employees like numbers on a spreadsheet. Cute! Kinds of sounds like Viacom, the company that signs Black's paycheck, too!

White financiers are all flooding up to the Waldorf Astoria this morning for the opening of today's Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst confab! The topics and the attendees are undeniably sexy; Paul Gigot, the WSJ's editorial page editor, Hamilton James, president of Blackstone Group, and, most of all, David Rubenstein, the reformed liberal, capitalism evangelist, Bush family friend and co-founder of private equity firm the Carlyle Group, who is not to be confused with uber-publicist Howard Rubenstein. And for some reason, New York's poor people are going to show up and protest the intricate system of tax breaks and benefits that help the rich amass more capital.