Learning Virginia Politics from a Bar Stool

Since 1895, the Jefferson Hotel has been “the” gentlemen’s bar. The lower lobby was the original hang out spot, and what used to be the front desk has been converted into TJ’s, a clubby-feeling bar and restaurant where all the politicos from the State Assembly hang out after sessions. Maybe they get inspiration from the life-sized white carrara marble statue of Thomas Jefferson in the Palm Court.

I popped in with a nice young couple I met, and we got to know each other over a cold Sierra Nevada…no Bud’s on this tap. After they left, I ordered a crab cake sandwich because there’s no better crab cake in the world than one from the Eastern Seaboard. My fellow Virginians know the secret is more crab and less cake…you just need enough egg and dry ingredients to loosely bind the delicious crustacean. It was so good that I forgot my cardinal rule of taking a picture of it before taking a bite!

While I was stuffing my face and groaning over the great remoulade that came with the crabcake, I couldn’t help overhearing the folks at the next table, dishing about that day’s session. One was a lobbyist and the other a reporter from the Washington Post, and I felt like I was in a scene from The West Wing.

My waiter pointed out a couple of assemblymen that were hanging out at the bar, and I felt like a real insider. Hey, I could have been Dee Dee Myers if I had been interested in going that route, but it’s much more fun, and less stressful, to learn about global politics by traveling.