If you’re like me, you’re probably ready for the 2018 Midterm Elections to be over. Every election cycle, we get bombarded with political ads on T.V., the radio, in the mail and on the phone, especially with Minnesota being in the unique position of having two U.S. Senate races and a gubernatorial race. If you have a social media account, you no doubt have that handful of friends who magically transform into political scientists every election season.

So, with that in mind, here are a few anecdotes stemming from the history of our illustrious Congress, where on Tuesday we shall endeavor to send our candidates of choice.

• John Randolph of Virginia, who served in both chambers of Congress, had many political enemies, most notably Henry Clay of Kentucky. According to one story, the two of them met on the sidewalk one day walking in the opposite direction. Randolph, who was taking up most of the sidewalk, said, “I never turn out for scoundrels!” Clay replied, “I always do,” and stepped aside with mock politeness.

• As a senator, Henry Clay once delivered an hour-long speech on the Senate floor about his dead bull, Orozimbo. He also once presented a petition to the Senate requesting land from two Kentuckians who claimed to have discovered “the secret to living forever.” The petition was denied.

• During the 1858 U.S. Senate race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, Douglas criticized Lincoln for having worked as a whiskey retailer. Lincoln replied, “Yes, it is true that the first time I saw Judge Douglas I was selling whiskey by the drink… I busy selling, he busy buying.”

• When Republican Congressman Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts was defeated in the 1874 Election, members of his own party were elated. The Democrats swept the election, and one Republican wired the message, “Butler defeated, everything else lost.”

• Republican Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin was known for his rebellious nature prior to his election as senator. When he entered the Senate in 1906, as a means to downplay any influence he might have, older members appointed him to the Committee to Investigate the Condition of the Potomac River, a committee that had never met.

• Senate Chaplain Edward Everett Hale was once asked if he prayed for the senators. Hale responded, “No, I look at the senators and pray for the country.”

• In 1921, Congressman Lindsey Blanton, a Presbyterian Sunday School teacher and prohibitionist, inserted dirty words into the “Congressional Record” for no apparent reason. His colleagues voted to censure him 293 to 0.

• Confident of a Republican victory in the 1948 Presidential Election, the Republican-controlled Congress provided a large appropriation for the inauguration, only to see it used for Democratic President Harry Truman’s inauguration. The total included $80,000 (approximately $797,000 in 2018) for grandstands alone.

• Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska was known for mispronouncing and twisting words, which were later dubbed “wherryisms.” He once referred to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the “Chief Joints of Staff” and spent an hour on the Senate floor talking about the crisis in “Indigo-Chino.”

• Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia once ordered an investigation on the American Political Science Association. His reason: they had given him an award, but he had never heard of them.

• During a Gridiron Club Dinner in 1958, then Senator John F. Kennedy told the following anecdote: “I dreamed about 1960 myself the other night and I told (Missouri Senator) Stuart Symington and (Texas Senator) Lyndon Johnson about it in the cloakroom yesterday. I told them how the Lord came into my bedroom, anointed my head, and said ‘John Kennedy, I hereby appoint you President of the United States.’ Stuart Symington said, ‘That’s strange, Jack, because I too had a similar dream last night in which the Lord anointed me and declared me, Stuart Symington, President of the United States and Outer Space.’ Lyndon Johnson said, ‘That’s very interesting, gentlemen, because I too had a similar dream last night and I don’t remember anointing either of you.’”