Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Sen. Rand Paul is seen on a TV monitor as he participates in a filibuster on the Senate floor March 6, 2013 on Capitol Hill.

There may be no pressing reason for Sen. Rand Paul to again embark upon an old-fashioned Senate filibuster, now that Attorney General Eric Holder has given him the answer on drone attacks he sought in launching  yesterday’s 13-hour talkfest.

But if Paul does decide to repeat his imitation of Jimmy Stewart in the famed 1939 film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the Kentucky Republican said he’d do one thing differently in preparing to strain his vocal cords.

“I would have eaten a bigger breakfast” before yesterday’s marathon stint, he said on Fox News this afternoon.

Responding on air to Holder’s terse, to-the-point “no” answer, in a letter, to the question Paul poased of whether the president has authority to order a drone strike targeting an American not engaged in combat on American soil, the lawmaker said: “Hurrah.”

Paul then expressed his chagrin that, from his viewpoint, he had to spend the last several weeks dragging that answer out of the administration, an effort that culminated with his filibuster.

Original post is Paul: Next Filibuster, More Fuel — and ‘Hurrah’ for Holder’s Reply by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chris Keane/Bloomberg

Michelle Patry, left, and Bobbie Fallahee pose for photos in front former Alaska governor Sara Palin’s bus during a signing for Palin’s book “Going Rogue: An American Life,” in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Sarah Palin may be off Fox News, but she has a million bucks in the bank.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s political action committee finished 2012 with $1.2 million in the bank, newly released Federal Election Commission reports show.

Palin’s Sarah PAC raised $2.6 million last year and contributed $236,000 million to candidates.

Her endorsement of Sen. Deb Fischer helped her score an upset victory in the Nebraska Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Fischer was elected in November.

Palin was the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president, the first woman to run on a national Republican ticket. Fox News announced last week that she would no longer be a contributor to its cable channel.

Original post is Sarah Palin: Looking Like $1.2 Million by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, greets delegates at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 4, 2012.

To the losers go the TV deals:

This just in from The Plain Dealer and wires: Cleveland’s own Dennis Kucinich, the retired congressman and liberal firebrand, has a new assignment.

FOX News contributor.

Kucinich, 66, a former Cleveland mayor as well as congressman, will debut in his new role on ““The O’Reilly Factor” at 8 p.m. He’ll soon appear on a variety of other Fox programs as well, the Plain Dealer reports, sometimes once a week, sometimes more often.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Kucinich told his hometown paper in a telephone interview. “I’ve had a good relationship with Fox over the years. They’ve always been open to letting me express my point of view.”

He has signed a multi-year contract, but would not discuss the terms. As for the possibility of getting rich off TV, he said, “I never look at the world in those terms.”

The deal came together quickly, he says after Fox invited him to New York. “This was not negotiated by an agent.”

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes says he’s always been impressed with Kucinich’s fearlessness and thoughtfulness on the issues, according to the Associated Press, which was first with the story. “His willingness to take a stand from his point of view makes him a valuable voice in our country’s debate,” Ailes said in a statement emailed to The Plain Dealer.

Kucinich’s erstwhile desire to impeach former Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t stand in the way of his TV career.

Redistricting stood in the way of his congressional future, however — he lost his Democratic primary to another member last year after the two were drawn into the same Cleveland-area boundaries. Democrat Marcy Kaptur of Toledo took over.

Then again, losing has never stood in the way of Fox contributors: Sarah Palin ran for vice president and lost. Mike Huckabee ran for president and lost.

Pat Buchanan reigned for a time on CNN and MSNBC after losing a couple of presidential campaigns — the butterfly ballot-vote in Palm Beach was not enough to carry him over the line.

And just as MSNBC needed some right-leaners, even FOX needs a House liberal.

And FOX, too, did sign Karl Rove up today for “four more years.”

(He was a winner in 2000 and 2004, though a loser in ’12.)

Original post is Kucinich to Fox: ‘Open’ to His Views by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Chuck Heath Jr., brother of Sarah Palin, rally campaign workers at a McCain-Palin regional headquarters office in this file photo.

There’s a new voice in the Palin family making the call for political upheaval, with Sarah’s brother — Chuck Heath Jr. — calling for “the disgruntled citizens of the United States… Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians… persons of every race, religion, economic status, and whoever else is interested, join together and form a new party.”

He adds, in a posting on his Facebook page: “I’d simply call it, the American Party. ”

Heath — who on a personal website identifies himself as “father, teacher, author” and “Alaskan gold miner” — may want to work on that name. The multitude of mostly little noted third-party presidential candidates in last November’s vote included Iowan Tom Hoefling, running under the America’s Party banner.

Heath doesn’t tout his sister — the former Alaska governor and running mate for Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008 whose public profile nowadays mostly consists of Barack Obama-bashing appearances on Greta van Susteren’s Fox News program — as a possible rogue White House contender. He does, though, cite her in making the case against the predominance of the two-party system.

“I’ve watched people in both major parties do everything they can to demean and destroy her,” he writes. “And all for what… for trying to limit the size of government? For asking all of us to do our share? For insisting we spend less than we take in? For ending crony capitalism? For going above and beyond to support our military? For utilizing our natural resources in a responsible way? For praying? The list goes on.”

It’s a list that sounds like a Palin 2016 campaign platform to us.

Despite discontent with the Democratic-Republican duopoly that many Americans share with Heath, the 2012 results underscore the daunting task facing third-party advocates.

Obama won re-election with 65.9 million votes; Republican Mitt Romney racked up just shy of 61 million.

Running third — Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, who didn’t quite reach the 1.3-million mark. Behind him? Green Party nominee Jill Stein, with roughly 470,000 votes.

Original post is Sarah Palin’s Brother: From Alaska, He Can See a Third, `American Party’ by Political Capital.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., center, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., right, at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2012, stating they'd block the nomination Susan Rice as Secretary of State. Photographer: J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

President Barack Obama had some fighting words today for the senator he faced in 2008:

If Sen. John McCain and allied Republican Lindsey Graham want to complain about the administration’s handling of the attack against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Obama said, the senator who served as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in ’08 shouldn’t be picking on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice — they should “go after” him.

The president’s ire for his erstwhile rival from Arizona and political ally from South Carolina involves his reported interest in nominating Rice for secretary of state, which he wouldn’t confirm in a White House news conference today. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to step aside soon, opening the nation’s chief diplomatic post for appointment. McCain, criticizing Rice for her public representations of what initially happened in Benghazi, is speaking out against her nomination as secretary of state.

“If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody? They should go after me,” Obama said today. “And I’m happy to have that discussion with them.”

“But for them to go after the UN ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi?” he said, “And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received? And to besmirch her reputation is outrageous. And, you know, we’re after an election now.”

“But when they go after the UN  ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me,” the president said.

McCain, who had raised his complaints about Rice during the 2012 election campaign, is drawing a certain line now.

“I will do everything in my power to block her from being the United States Secretary of State,” McCain, an outspoken critic of the administration’s explanations of Benghazi, said in an appearance on Fox News. “She has proven that she either doesn’t understand or she is not willing to accept evidence on its face. There is no doubt five days later what this attack was.”

Without confirming his thinking on the State appointment, Obama said at his news conference: “Let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill, and professionalism, and toughness, and grace. As I’ve said before (on the question of Benghazi), she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her.”

He said:  “And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity at the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.”

Original post is Obama to McCain: `Go After Me’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tony Dejak/AP Photo

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, left, is hugged by his daughter, Liz, as they celebrate at the Ohio Democratic party election night celebration on Nov. 6, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio.

It was a bad night for Karl Rove.

That’s the assessment this morning of  Sen.  Sherrod Brown of Ohio after yesterday’s election results.

First, Brown survived what he said was $40 million spent against him in his race with Republican challenger Josh Mandel by outside groups, including Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit group founded with help from Rove.

Then, Rove, a Fox News contributor and the Republican strategist who helped former President George W. Bush carry Ohio and win re-election in 2004, questioned the network’s decision to call Ohio for President Barack Obama as “premature.” Obama won the unofficial Ohio vote by 2 percentage points statewide.

“Not to egg him on for six years later, but Karl Rove doesn’t know Ohio as well as he thinks he does,” Brown said today at a post-election press conference in Columbus.

“I don’t say he’s not welcome here,” Brown continued. “He’s always welcome here. We look forward to him coming to somewhere in Ohio and making a speech and doing what he does here and helping the local economy, I’m fine of that. But I think his brand of politics is pretty discredited.”

Both Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber struck out in a lot of races, as Jonathan Salant has noted.

Original post is Rove’s Bad Night: Sherrod Brown by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg

Rupert Murdoch in New York.

Rupert Murdoch, the News Corp. CEO at the helm of some of the world’s most influential media outlets, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, has close to 360,000 followers on Twitter — and they all know exactly who the boss wants for the White House.

It’s not President Barack Obama.

Murdoch, who prefers to air his unedited, unvetted, unvarnished opinions via Twitter, has increased the volume of his politically potent posts in the run-up to Election Day, making him one of the most vocal executives on U.S. politics this season.

He recently criticized Obama’s remarks that voting against Republican Mitt Romney would be the best revenge, and he’s been reminding his followers that a continued Obama presidency would be disastrous for the economy.

The media mogul also has claimed that news coverage appears to have slanted in favor of Obama — he has lamented about how the “monolithic media” appears to be pushing for the current president.

That could be considered a contrarian critique given the fact that Murdoch manages a $56 billion media company that owns the Wall Street Journal, the highest-circulating newspaper in the U.S., as well as Fox News, the highest-rated cable news network. Murdoch’s company also owns Twentieth Century Fox film studios, HarperCollins book publishers and the New York Post.

More recently, the 81-year-old executive went so far as to chastise New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for his full-throated praise of President Obama’s handling of relief efforts in the wake of super-storm Sandy, which decimated the Jersey Shore:  “Christie, while thanking O, must re- declare for Romney, or take blame for next four dire years.”

Twitter’s 140-character limit fits the blunt Murdoch, who’s well known for going off-script on quarterly earnings calls with analysts and reporters.

But unlike his comfortable candor on Twitter, Murdoch has chosen to skip those conference calls for the past year after a hacking scandal erupted at one of his U.K. newspapers.

That controversy has followed Murdoch to Twitter. Most of his posts are widely re-Tweeted and often elicit sharp responses.

After a recent post on which Murdoch claimed CIA chief David Petraeus had “taken fall” for Obama’s handling of the terrorist attack in Libya, a Twitter user responded, “Who took the fall for you when you bugged all those phones?”

Murdoch didn’t reply. Instead, he followed up on his previous post by writing: “Ignore last tweet. Sorry. Petraeus has NOT taken fall for O.”

Twitter, nonetheless, remains Murdoch’s most frequent and consistent personal media outlet, questioning news reports on the latest polling data and calling out politicians.

Still, one common refrain found in Murdoch’s prolific posting is something one might not expect from an executive not shy about grousing about the Beltway powerful: “Why can’t we debate civilly?”

Original post is Murdoch’s Anti-Obama Twitter Drive: Christie, Petraeus and More by Political Capital.

Photograph by Edward Lea/The Press of Atlantic City/AP Photo

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks at Anglesea Fire House in North Wildwood N.J.

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, delivered the keynote address at Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential nominating convention.

Christie has served as a surrogate for Romney on Sunday talk shows.

So when Christie says — on FOX News — that President Barack Obama has done “a great job” for New Jersey in the midst of Hurricane-turned-post-tropical cyclone Sandy, the White House is getting some serious political notice. Even FEMA gets a tip of the hat.

The governor was asked, in an appearance on FOX today, how the president declaring New Jersey a disaster area had helped.

“Helps us tremendously,” Christie said. “I spoke to the president three times yesterday. He called me for the last time at midnight last night, asking what he could do. I said, `If you could expedite designating New Jersey as a major disaster area, that, that would help us to get federal money and resources in here as quickly as possible to help clean up the damage here.”’

“The president was great last night,” Christie said. “He said he would get it done. At 2:00 a.m. I got a call from FEMA to answer a couple of final questions, and then he signed the declaration this morning.”

“So I have to give the president great credit. He’s been on the phone with me three times in the last 24 hours. He’s been very attentive, and anything I’ve asked for, he’s gotten to me. So I thank the president publicly for that. He’s done, as far as I’m concerned, a great job for New Jersey.”

To rub it in, Christie was asked about any possibility that Romney might join him in a tour of damage in New Jersey.

“I have no idea,” the governor said, “nor am I the least bit concerned or interested.”

“I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey,” Christie explained, “much bigger than presidential politics, and I could care less about any of that stuff. I have a job to do. I’ve got 2.4 million people out of power. Ive got devastation on the shore. I’ve got floods in the northern part of my state.”

“If you thin right now I gave a damn about presidential politics,” he said, “then you don’t know me.”

Original post is Chris Christie: Obama Doing `Great Job’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep Paul Ryan wave to supporters at the Augusta Expoland in Fishersville, Virginia, the day after the first Presidential debate.

Updated at 5:38 pm EDT

President Barack Obama may have missed an opportunity to hold Republican Mitt Romney to his fundraising comment about 47 percent of Americans being out of reach to him during their televised debate this week, but Romney is working on his own at an explanation.

Initially, Romney called it “inelegant” — his recently published comment from a May 17 fundraising dinner in Florida at which he said the 47 percent who pay no income taxes are “victims” of government dependency, sure to support Obama and unreachable by his campaign. Last night, on FOX News’ “Hannity,” Romney said it was simply “wrong.”

“Now and then, you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right,” Romney said. “In this case, I said something that was just completely wrong.”

Asked about Obama’s campaign-trail response to the debate — in which the president has been challenging the words of “the guy playing Mitt Romney” – the Republican nominee told Sean Hannity and FOX’s viewers: “Obviously, the president wasn’t happy with the response to our debate last night.”

If there was no talk of the 47 percent in the debate, there has been plenty of it in campaign ads that Obama and the super-PAC backing his campaign are airing.

“What the president’s been campaigning, and saying about me is very different than what I actually am, what I actually believe,” Romney said. “What the president’s been saying and the reality are pretty far apart.”

He accused Democrats of pursuing a “kill Romney” strategy all year, including “character assassination” which has “gone way too far” and “diminishes the White House.”

The Obama campaign has produced a Web video asking which statement Romney meant when:

Original post is Romney: 47% `Completely Wrong’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidates Sen. Sam Brownback, left, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, center, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in a GOP presidential debate at Saint Anselms College in this June 5, 2007 file photo in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Guess what Republican Mitt Romney was doing on June 5, 2007 — the day that Democrat Barack Obama was videotaped speaking of racial injustice and giving a shout-out to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Touting his health-care mandate.

Romney, who was making his first bid for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, was taking part in a party debate in New Hampshire, defending the mandate for insurance in the Massachusetts health-care law that he signed as governor.

“We need to find a way to get everybody in our state insured with private insurance,” he said. “The half a million who didn’t have insurance, all the people worried that if they lost their job, they’d lose insurance, we said, `We’ve got to find a way to get them insured without raising taxes, without a government takeover.’”

“And that’s what we did. It relies on personal responsibility,” Romney said in debate. “This is a big issue for this country. Every Democrat up there is talking about a form of socialized medicine, government takeover, massive tax increase. We have to stand up and not just talk about it. I’m the guy who actually tackled this issue. We get all of our citizens insured. We get people that were uninsured with private health insurance.”

“We have to stand up and say, `The market works. Personal responsibility works.’”

On this day, candidate Obama, then a senator from Illinois, also was campaigning for his party’s presidential nomination. His appearance before black clergy members at Hampton University in Virginia that day is replaying today at conservative Web sites, replaying his supportive words about the Chicago pastor whom he later rejected in that campaign because of Wright’s incendiary remarks in the pulpit.

Romney has pledged to repeal Obama’s 2010 health-care law, which includes a mandate that most Americans obtain insurance starting in 2014, if he is elected president. He has maintained in this campaign that the health-care law he signed in Massachusetts was right for his state, but not necessarily for a nation. And he has accused the president of trimming Medicare to pay for his health-care plan while taxing Americans more for it.

June 5, 2007, a quotable day all around.

Original post is Where Was Romney June 5, 2007? by Political Capital.