Fork Union, Va. (AP) - By his ninth town hall meeting in a sweltering Virginia middle school auditorium this week, freshman Rep. Tom Perriello, one of Washington's backbencher Democrats thrown into the front lines of the health care debate, is no longer fazed by angry crowds.

The newcomers are caught in a crossfire between their congressional leaders to the left and conservative constituents to the right, and they hold clout that could determine if health care legislation passes -- and in what form.

Perriello won by just 727 votes last year, and with re-election looming in just 15 months, he has no choice but face critics in town hall meetings around his rural swing district in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains...

House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) says he’s troubled by a California Democrat’s plan to push for the return – and expansion – of the Fairness Doctrine.
 
In a newspaper interview on Monday, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said she would work on bringing back the federal regulation that requires equal time for the expression of different political views on the public airwaves...

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiring to get financial benefits through his authority to appoint a U.S. senator to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama's election as president.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired...

Polls showing John McCain tied or even ahead of Barack Obama are stirring angst and second-guessing among some of the Democratic Party’s most experienced operatives, who worry that Obama squandered opportunities over the summer and may still be underestimating his challenges this fall...

The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America says while Democrats follow many
faiths, the party is united in supporting abortion rights.

Speaking before prime time at a Democratic National Convention that is
reaching out to evangelical Christians, Nancy Keenan acknowledged religion among
Democrats. But she said the right to abort a pregnancy is one of the party's
"core moral values."...

Pro-family leader Matt Barber says the "radical San
Francisco-style social experimentation" promoted by Barack Obama and the
Democratic Party is not what is best for the country.

The Denver Post reports 358 openly homosexual delegates
are in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, the largest number ever to
take part in a major party national convention. A special DNC program called
"Pride in the Party" was set up to recruit more homosexual delegates and
homosexual delegates of color...

It was a coup for Democrats: An emerging young evangelical voice, a registered Republican no less, accepted their invitation to deliver a prayer at next week's Democratic National Convention.

But Cameron Strang, the 32-year-old editor of edgy and hip Relevant Magazine, had second thoughts and pulled out of delivering the benediction on the convention's first night, Monday. Citing fears that his bridge-building gesture would be wrongly construed as an endorsement, Strang said he instead hopes to take a lower-profile role, participating in a convention caucus meeting on religion later in the week...

An evangelical pastor from Florida who calls himself a "conservative Republican"
will be delivering the opening and closing prayer at the Democratic National
Convention next Thursday in Denver.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will kick off Sunday with
what organizers call an "interfaith gathering" of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim,
and Jewish leaders and a representative of Denver's Buddhist community. A
Convention spokeswoman says the event will show that Democrats are
"faith-friendly" and more "religiously diverse" than Republicans...

There are 10 months until the Democratic national convention next year in Denver, Colorado, but pro-life advocates are already making preparations for massive demonstrations there. They complain that not only is the party officially pro-abortion but none of the candidates seeking its presidential nod are pro-life.