The final hours of Congress before a break for the 2012 elections featured lawmakers in both parties in full campaign mode, as the House and Senate floors turned into a bipartisan prop for election year finger pointing on Thursday with just over six weeks until Election Day.
Senate Republicans started the action on Thursday morning by getting most of their members to the floor for a series of speeches that took shots both at Democrats running the Senate and President Obama.
"We are on a merry-go-round with this administration of excuses," said an aggravated Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), as he slammed the White House over its handling of last week's terrorist attack in Libya.
Well over thirty GOP Senators were on the floor when I peeked into the chamber just before 10 am; a number of Republicans sat waiting with 5 x 7 index cards that had their lines ready to go.
"For three consecutive fiscal years, the leadership of the United States Senate majority party has consciously decided not to bring a budget to the floor," said Sen. Johnny Isakson, who spoke for about thirty seconds as part of the rapid fire round robin on the floor.
"America deserves better, it deserves better leadership," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who spoke for a whole minute; he made no mention of his speech a day earlier when he said he had "an attitude problem" about going to work in the Senate.
About an hour later, Congressional leaders put on their happy faces to drive the ceremonial "first nail" for the inaugural platform - after all, January 20 isn't that far away.
Many reporters joked later about the hammers that were given both to Speaker Boehner and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, wondering if they might turn on each other.
"That seemed to me to be a really dangerous thing to chance," said one of my fellow scribes to laughter in the press gallery.
There wasn't too much laughter down on the House floor Thursday afternoon, as both sides gave as good as they got in terms of verbal jabs, with most lawmakers seeing everything through election-colored glasses.
"The bill before us today exemplifies the do-nothing Republican Congress," fumed Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who accused the GOP of simply trying to "score political points."
"How sad for the American people," Hoyer boomed from the Well of the House.
Meanwhile, back on the Senate floor, the two party leaders were playing a familiar game of objecting to various unanimous consent requests to set the Senate schedule for quick votes to allow Senators to go home.
One late controversy centered on a bid by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to force a vote on a plan dealing with hunting on federal lands - it was sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who is up for re-election.
"This is a new development," said Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell dryly, as his body language didn't seem to send off the feeling of that he and Reid would be throwing back a cold beverage together on the Capitol balcony named for former Sen. Robert Dole.
Instead of wrapping up Thursday night, Reid threatened to force procedural votes into the weekend - a familiar threat that is usually an empty one in the Senate.
Meanwhile, several lawmakers that I interviewed told me - with a straight face - that they hope to come back after the elections and solve all kinds of thorny issues by the end of the year.
"Everybody says that I'm a complete idiot for being so positive about this stuff, but I can't help it," said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who said he still thinks the deals will get done in late December, avoiding major tax increases and budget cuts across the board.
Johnson said he wants to stay and work well into October, as Congress has done a number of times in an election year, but that's not going to happen.
Instead, lawmakers will be on their way home soon, not for a district work period (as it is called), but for a campaign work period.
It is the earliest election year departure since 1960, when lawmakers returned home to stump for the Kennedy-Nixon election.
For students of history, the Democrats won the White House that year with Kennedy and retained control of both the House and Senate, though the GOP picked up 22 seats in the House and one in the Senate.
