As Mel Brooks famously said, it's good to be the king. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank spent the last three months illustrating Brooks' point in green.

As Congress has been tightening credit card rules, overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program and considering a financial regulatory overhaul, Frank, D-Mass., has been hauling in donations.

The American Council Life Insurers PAC even donated space for a fundraiser.

The money -- whether intended as request, reward or act of altruism -- is always where the action is, and Frank's committee has been busy.

Obviously, Buenos Aires isn't the best place to be if you want to run South Carolina. But for the crowded field of 2010 gubernatorial hopefuls, it's looking more and more like South Carolina isn't the best place to be, either.

That could boost the fortunes of Rep. J. Gresham Barrett, who publicly has avoided the palace intrigue in Columbia in the wake of Gov. Mark Sanford confessing that he had an affair with an Argentinian woman.

"If you exist, you're getting dirt on you. It's filthy. There is so much destruction. At the end of the day it will be the last man standing," said a South Carolina Republican strategist who has not taken sides in the 2010 gubernatorial race. "So maybe Gresham Barrett is the winner."

Politics rarely offers such a clear combination shot as the one presented by the House climate-change vote to former Rep. Patrick J. Toomey, the Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania.

To win in November 2010, Toomey must prove to voters, particularly conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, that he isn't the fire-breathing ideologue he was portrayed as in a 2004 primary run against Sen. Arlen Specter -- a portrait based on his House voting record in three terms. Similarly, he needs to paint his opponent, whether it's the new Democrat Specter or Rep. Joe Sestak, who is all but certain to challenge Specter for the nomination, as too far to the left for Pennsylvania.

That helps explain why Toomey used a Monday morning news release to pat four moderate-to-conservative House Democrats on their backs for voting against the climate-change bill, which includes a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.

"Along with 40 other Democrats, these Pennsylvania Democrats had the courage to stand up to one-party rule in Washington," Toomey said. "It is a shame Rep. Joe Sestak couldn't muster up the same courage. Instead, he voted to support Nancy Pelosi's extreme agenda. The question is, will Senator Specter choose the same path?"