The young and relatively powerful gathered at the 201 Bar Monday night as the National Journal saluted its list of the top Hill power players under age 35.
Those making the cut included folks from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Goldman Sachs, the Senate Republican Conference and congressional offices on both sides of the aisle. Michael Steel (press secretary for House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio), Erica Elliot (communications director for House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.) and Jesse Ferguson (head of communications for the DCCC) must have been feeling particularly powerful, as they were all also recently featured on BuzzFeed's list of people who will be running Washington next year.
The list was picked through a combination of public votes and reporting, National Journal's Chris Frates explained. "We tried to get folks who aren't self-promotional," he told the bar. "And in this town, they're hard to find."
Partygoers were so keen on rubbing elbows with power that a few hallucinated seeing Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., in the crowd. Four political reporters (who will remain unidentified to preserve their dignity) were seen racing across the party to talk to a blond guy with a slight resemblance to the Illinois congressman. One of the reporters later told Yeas & Nays that it took a minute for them to realize that this dude was not in fact Schock. "We were introducing ourselves, thinking we were hotshots," she said. The confused look on the guy's face clued the reporters to the fact that they had the wrong man.
"He walked away," she said. "He was very weirded out by the whole situation."
