Philadelphia magazine editor Larry Platt spent Monday in Washington in part wooing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee into giving him the green light to challenge Rep. Jim Gerlach. Montgomery County Democratic Committee chair Marcel Groen was with him.

Platt, whose potential candidacy emerged last week, is an unlikely candidate. But he was no doubt pitched to the DCCC as an unconventional challenger in a year that needs just that. With approval ratings of Congress at all-time lows, there’s a mood in much of Washington — particularly among Republicans — that 2008 is shaping up to be an anti-incumbent, anti-Washington year, as opposed to the anti-Republican year that swept the GOP out of power in 2006. And a quirky magazine editor from the Philly burbs ain’t Washington, the argument goes.