Imaginary Friends.(Hunan Dynasty)

Hunan Dynasty, a few blocks from the Capitol, is not generally considered to be one of Washington's better Chinese restaurants, which is saying something, because, Chinese-food-wise, Washington is not New York, or, for that matter, Philadelphia. Even its devotees--for example, New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer--admit that the restaurant "always has the faint smell of disinfectant." Nor does Hunan Dynasty draw a notably powerful crowd. One night last week, as Schumer sat down for dinner, the only other diners were a group of out-of-town electric-company executives and Representative Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio, who is running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. "I believe I'm going to win New Hampshire," he said, adding, "The tofu here is very good."

Schumer, on the other hand, is more of a Szechuan-shrimp, spicy-beef sort of federal legislator. "I love this restaurant," he said, and meant it. Hunan Dynasty, he said, serves cheap, honest, middle-class food, and Schumer styles himself a cheap and honest member of the middle class. The middle class, in fact, has been the key to his success. Schumer, though less widely known than New York's junior senator--whom he has dragged, on occasion, to Hunan Dynasty; she even hosted a party there for his new book, "Positively American"--has been more instrumental than Hillary Clinton in rejuvenating the Democratic Party. It is fair to say that only George W. Bush did more than Schumer to help the Democrats retake the Senate last year. As chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer recruited such ostentatiously centrist candidates as Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, Jon Tester, and Bob Casey, and he raised enormous amounts of cash to fund their campaigns.

Liberal elitism, he said, as he stirred Sweet 'N Low into his tea with a chopstick, alienates middle-income families from the Party. "Middle-class people don't think everybody should have to drive a tiny little car to achieve improvement in global warming," he said. Invoking opponents of expanding the tuition tax credit to the middle class, he went on, "If we listened to the New York Times editorial board, we'd have twenty-one votes in the Senate."

Schumer says that he is accompanied everywhere he goes by two imaginary middle-class friends, who advise him on all manner of ...