When I think of things that should be in a political convention swag bag, I think colorful t-shirts, buttons, and unnecessary bridge-building projects for my district. The Republicans disappointed. The Democrats are even worse.

The White House released this photo of Barack Obama and daughters, Sasha and Malia, watching Michelle Obama deliver her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

This is officially the gayest convention ever: the Democratic National Convention has a record number of LGBT delegates.

The Democratic National Convention had the indecency to use footage of Ted Kennedy to attack Mitt Romney. Are your pearls firmly clutched?

The Time Warner Cable Sucks™ Arena is, just as you might have guessed, abuzz with activity, right now, just minutes before the Democratic convention's formal kickoff. Would you like to tour the wonderful, wacky, and very mildly amusing scene, in photos? Why not???

REPORTING LIVE FROM THE CHARLOTTE BOBCATS PRACTICE COURT/ TEMPORARY DNC PRESS CENTER, CHARLOTTE, NC—Welcome to the 2012 Democratic National Convention, gentle reader! Your correspondents have arrived, soaked by a freak rainstorm but unbowed, for three about two and a quarter days of solid "on the scene" coverage of the Most Important Political Nomination Convention of 2012, Democratic Edition. Come along on our harrowing journey through artifice, won't you?

There are two equally valid and not incompatible reactions to have towards the WSJ's big investigative story today on political spending by unions. The first is that there is clearly some effort here by the (not particularly pro-union) WSJ on behalf of the right wing and/ or business interests to insinuate that union spending is a counterbalance to corporate Super PAC spending, so everything is fair. The second is that unions need to spend their money on different shit.

Even if he secures the Democratic nomination in Tuesday's primary, 1st District House candidate Ryan Combe knows getting voters in the dark-red state of Utah to send him to Washington will not come easy.

This Sunday, Newark Mayor Cory Booker went on NBC's Meet the Press, home of David Gregory's meatball pitch to right-handed batters, and called Barack Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's Bain Capital record "nauseating."

A funny thing happened in a New York Magazine blog post last Friday. In a piece on Occupy Wall Street's upcoming plans, reporter Joe Coscarelli made a little mistake. He wrote:

Entertainment Weekly hired a fancy research company to figure out what shows liberals and conservatives like best. They should have just hired us to make up the answers, because they're really stereotypical. Liberals like The Daily Show, 30 Rock, Glee, and David Letterman. Conservatives like, well, a whole bunch of crap.

Just one year after getting used as Pine Sol by Republicans in the midterms, Democrats and progressives came back to score a bunch of victories in the 2011 elections—in particular, two important ballot measures in Ohio and Mississippi. Here's a roundup of election night news:

The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing, and with it a national fervor increasingly backed by progressive base groups.

West Virginia's acting governor, Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin won tonight's special gubernatorial election despite the fact that, according to his opponent, he loves Obamacare, loves it so much he wants to gay-marry it. There'll be another election in 2012. [AP]

A lot is changing on the gay rights landscape. The military - once a home for staunch homophobia - is now one of the more welcoming employers for openly gay people. Where the last Democratic president sat down and signed the Defense Of Marriage Act into law, the current Democratic president is on a mission to tear it down.

Doing their part to keep the struggling U.S. Postal Service afloat, Congressional Republican leaders sent a letter a to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday, demanding that he stop doing whatever it is that he's thinking of doing to help the economy, because they said so.

What are you doing tomorrow at 10:30? Meeting some guy from Craigslist who says he'll buy your kid? If you're near a television, check out President Obama's Rose Garden address—he's going to propose class warfare!

Kinde Durkee, a veteran campaign treasurer working for the Democratic Party in California, was arrested on Sept. 2, suspected by federal authorities of having embezzled $1 million. She allegedly ran a kind of campaign-fund Ponzi scheme — funneling money between accounts like a shell game — leading some to call her the "Bernie Madoff of campaign treasurers." (Madoff, who would never be caught dead in a chartreuse smock, would probably bristle at the comparison.) Now several candidates' campaign funds have been completely wiped out, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein's.

Republican Bob Turner just beat Democrat Mark Weprin in the special election held to replace dick-Tweeting Anthony Weiner. Did Weprin lose because of Israel? Or Obama? Or gay marriage? If only self-important experts would appear on television to tell us!

"Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy." — Mike Lofgren, a Republican congressional staffer for 28 years, retired in June. He does not think much of the current incarnation of his party.