"That man a friend of yours? He felt me up...in a laundromat." Helen is pointing to a picture on the wall beneath the staircase of Senator Vernon Smits (played by Bill Murray), a former resident of Alpha House who went to prison in the first episode. The other pictures on the wall are also former residents of the townhouse who have been accused of indiscretions: Rep. Tom DeLay; former Senator Larry Craig; former Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon; former Senator John Ensign of Nevada; and Senator David Vitter.
"May I ask why we're helping Digger's tracker girl?": "Trackers" have become a central part of opposition research, or "oppo". They follow around the opposing candidate to record them saying something embarrassing or politically unwise. The best-known tracker moment came in 2006 when Governor George Allen of Virginia twice used the word "macaca" (a racial slur) in reference to an Indian-American tracker working for James Webb, his opponent in a Senate campaign. The incident led to Allen's defeat in the election.
"Hakeem, have you ever gone totally AWOL in your life?" The most famous example of a politician going AWOL or "off the grid" during a campaign came in 2009 when South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford disappeared for six days after telling aides he was "hiking on the Appalachian Trail". In truth he was visiting his mistress in Argentina. Sanford later divorced his wife, and his mistress accompanied him on election night in 2013 when he won a special election for a House seat.
"Last night at dinner I happened to be seated next to Reince Priebus." Priebus is the chairman of the Republican National Committee, a position that gives him authority to determine who will deliver the party's response to the president's address to a joint session of Congress.
"Why are you campaigning in this old truck?" The idea of campaigning in a pickup isn't new, but it was used recently to great effect by Republican Scott Brown, when he won a special election in early 2010 to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy. (Brown lost to Elizabeth Warren in 2012).