Hello, welcome to Political Extra, which we hope will give our readers additional insight into the grittier and funnier side of the campaign trail, Capitol Hill and Washington in general.

As you know, President Bush held his final State of the Union address last night.

One of the oldest traditions for lawmakers is to get those aisle seats so they can shake hands with the president (it never hurts to send a photo back to the hometown paper displaying how chummy one is with the president, no matter which party he or she is from).

Maine's lawmakers were more reserved in this sense. Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican, entered the chamber before her colleague, Senator Susan Collins, who is also a Republican. Snowe sat near the front of the chamber, slightly to President Bush's left in the center of the House chamber.

Collins sat between New Hampshire Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu, both Republicans.

When President Bush entered the chamber, he walked down the center aisle shaking hands with lawmakers from both parties. When he saw the cast Snowe is wearing around her wrist, which she broke after slipping on a patch of ice in her driveway, Bush seemed to ask "What happened?" Throughout the speech, Snowe had a hard time clapping.

Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, sat with his Democratic colleagues, Reps. Peter Welch of Vermont and Tim Bishop of New York. He spent some time before the speech began shaking hands with who he hopes will be his future colleagues: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and some others. He seemed to want to shake hands with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., but Obama was swamped with well-wishers.

Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat, watched the speech in the chamber, but from the press balcony I could not spot him in the crowd.

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