An insider's glance at the AllPolitics players

Editor/assistant editor Amy Budetti left New Jersey to play politics in D.C. She joined AllPolitics in May 1998 after working as a media buyer for political campaigns and as a writer for National Journal's Hotline newsletter and an associate editor and producer for the company's Cloakroom Web site. She has a degree in political science from Bucknell University and laments the end of Seinfeld with her dog Puddy.

Senior Editor Randy Lilleston used to have hobbies, including playing the blues, brewing beer and assembling computers, but that was before the 2000 elections dawned. A Missouri native, Lilleston moved to Washington in late 1990 to cover the federal government for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In 1995, after two years of covering the Clinton White House, he joined Congressional Quarterly Inc. as managing editor for online ventures. Lilleston joined AllPolitics in mid-1999 and is a graduate of Central Missouri State University, home of the Fighting Mules.

Editor Ian Christopher McCaleb has finally ceased trying to convince himself that his career as a journalist is a temporary distraction. The books, television scripts and screenplays that were destined to ooze with ease from his pores while he slept have failed to materialize on his nightstand after some 11 years of disciplined night-time slumber, so journalism seems a viable fallback. Before coming to AllPolitics, McCaleb toiled to avoid writing the next "Ulysses" as a senior editor at Congressional Quarterly Inc.; as managing editor of McClatchy's NandoTimes.com in Raleigh, North Carolina; and as a congressional correspondent for United Press International. In that time, McCaleb has worked as a freelance music critic, and has written a variety of opinion pieces for many widely ignored publications. A writing major at Fairfax, Virginia's, George Mason University -- where he managed the student radio station for two years -- McCaleb has a terrible habit of cramming his basement full of musical equipment he never has time to use, and of allowing the New York Giants to rip his heart from his chest every autumn Sunday afternoon.

Writer/editor Amy Paulson has been wandering around Capitol Hill since 1989, where she cut her lobbying teeth on the 1990 farm bill and environmental legislation. Paulson, an Illinois native, also served as a lobbyist for the Illinois General Assembly's Washington office, working with the Illinois congressional delegation. She comes to AllPolitics from National Journal, where she was editor of the Kaiser Daily Reports, two online news summaries on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS policy, and a contributing editor to American Health Line. She writes children's books in her spare time, and has recently completed a biography on Dorothea Dix, whoever she was. Paulson joined AllPolitics in December, 1999 and is a graduate of Hartford's Trinity College and George Washington University.