When you've been in Congress for a while, you make some interesting friends. Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards slipped into town last Friday for an invitation-only fundraiser to benefit U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah's re-election campaign. Some 500 people paid $125 to attend the lunchtime event at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza hotel. Edwards did not seek re-election to his Senate seat after he and John Kerry lost their 2004 presidential bid to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The former U.S. senator from North Carolina now serves as the director of the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. On the side, he and his wife Elizabeth are active in One America Committee, a PAC dedicated to getting Democrats elected nationwide.

Fattah said he was friendly with Edwards from their days on the Hill and asked him to be the fundraiser keynote. While Fattah reportedly raked in $50,000 that afternoon, he certainly doesn't need it for his re-election. With no primary opponent—NAACP president and Philadelphia Sunday Sun Publisher J. Whyatt Mondesire opted out—Fattah only has to face Republican Michael Gessner in November.

Meanwhile, Fattah has not formally announced that he will run for mayor in 2007, but he's made no secret of those plans. Last September, Federal Election Commission Chairman Scott Thomas gave his blessing to Fattah to raise money in excess of federal limits for local offices, as long as the funds are only spent on local races. (The funds raised at the event conform to the limits.) When asked what he would do with the money left over from his congressional campaign, Fattah said, "I give money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. So far I've given them $110,000."

The FEC opinion was silent on whether money raised for a federal race can be converted to use in a local race. But already, that's become a major issue as mayoral hopefuls jockey for position. Since he's raising money in excess of city limits for a mayoral candidate, Fattah is among those being sued by Committee of Seventy member Allan Schimmel. (The others named were state Rep. Dwight Evans, Tom Knox, John Dougherty, City Councilman Michael Nutter and former City Controller Jonathan Saidel.) Filing suit on April 11, Schimmel hopes the courts will determine at what point someone is considered a candidate and, as such, is held to those fundraising limits.

Meanwhile, novelist and former Philadelphia Weekly columnist Solomon Jones is serving as spokesperson for the Fattah for Mayor Exploratory Committee (FMEC). Jones says they're still recruiting for the committee, which Fattah asked to look at numerous ways to improve Philadelphia. They hope to attract as many as 200 people from a diverse cross section of the city. Their report is expected to be made public at year's end.

The Philadelphia Federation of Young Republicans (PFYR) had their spring meeting last Wednesday night at Devil's Alley Bar and Grill. There, Chairman Kevin Kelly, who just got back from serving as an Air Force F-16 fighter pilot assisting ground troops in Iraq, said he believes in the war.

"The war is totally accomplished, but the message is not felt," said Kelly. "Who would have thought three years ago that the Iraqis would be voting and the Sunnis would be allied with the Kurds?"

Kelly describes himself as a Ronald Reagan Republican despite being raised in a Catholic family of Democrats in Sharon Hill. "I was chasing girls, going to keg parties, until I started to travel and joined the military," he said. "The Republican party is more in tune with what I believe."

According to a flier distributed at the event, PFYR's mission is to "be the alternative for citizens who are fed up with dysfunctional, inefficient government." While the 60 or so youngish GOPers mingled at the bar, there was some serious business to attend to. Atop their ticket is U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who they need to be re-elected. And that is not an easy cause to promote in Philadelphia.

A Santorum campaign operative told the crowd that more than 20,000 volunteers had signed on statewide.

"[Bob] Casey is Santorum-lite. Who needs him when I can get the real thing?" asked Kelly. "It's like Bruce Springsteen versus Rick Springfield."

Priscilla Cohen, a PFYR Outreach co-chair and GOP ward leader, conceded that it would be tough for Santorum to win the city. But, she thinks voters will be driven by more local issues like crime and economic development in their neighborhoods than bigger social issues like abortion. "A one-party system is never good, whether it be Democrat or Republican," she said. "The Democrats have had control here for too long, it has all become corrupt with pay to play."