Photograph by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Drew Brees #9 of the New Orleans Saints points out the defense of the Atlanta Falcons at Georgia Dome on November 29, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Written with Cheyenne Hopkins

How can a U.S. senator score easy points with home-state voters?

Focus on football when others are talking about the minutiae of Wall Street regulation.

Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, plans to cross-examine Mary Jo White next week about her assessment of wrongdoing by New Orleans Saints players and coaches in the National Football League team’s “Bountygate” scandal.

White, nominated by President Barack Obama to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, was retained by the NFL in 2011 to review evidence that team paid players to injure opponents.

The probe resulted in the suspension of several key defensive players and coaches, including Saints head coach Sean Payton. The players suspensions were overturned last year on appeal. The Saints didn’t recover from the suspensions, finishing with a 7-9 win-loss record in 2012, one year after going 13-3. The team won Super Bowl XLIV in 2010.

“If Mary Jo’s work at the SEC is anything close to her botched work for the NFL, folks who want to protect their investments, like the victims of the Stanford Ponzi scheme, are  in trouble,” Vitter said in a statement.

The senator’s state is home to many Stanford investors.

The three-member arbitration panel that overturned the players’ suspensions faulted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for his handling of the discipline. It didn’t address White’s review of the facts or the quality of the investigation.

Vitter’s staff says he plans to ask White how many of the NFL’s cooperating witnesses actually mentioned a “pay for injury” program, and if any of them had an interest in verifying the league’s claims.

Original post is SEC Nominee vs. Saints Defensive Line by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Ray Lewis #52 of the Baltimore Ravens celebrates with the Vince Lombardi trophy after the Ravens won 34-31 against the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Feb. 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Steven Law, one of the strategists with Karl Rove in the Conservative Victory Project, said this morning on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that the group is compatible with the Tea Party, adding that it would back a wide range of candidates in Republican primaries.

Ingraham shot back: “Why should you be the arbiter of all things conservative in the primary process?”

Law said reiterated that his group’s goal is to help the most electable conservative candidates win office.

Brent Bozell, leader of the group For America, a social media group that identifies its goals as promoting limited government, a strong national defense and Judeo-Christian values, complains that “these fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage.”

Bozell, appearing later on Ingraham’s show today, said Law and Rove should “retire from politics” because their results in 2012 and earlier elections have been “disastrous.”

He called their labeling of the new group “conservative” offensive.

“It’s like Brent Bozell calling himself Ray Lewis,” he said, alluding to the retiring linebacker for the Super Bowl champion football team, the Baltimore Ravens.

Original post is Law vs. Bozell: How Ray Lewis Fits In Picture by Political Capital.

There is no higher-priced ad than a Super Bowl commercial.

And there is no higher-stakes fight than the one that the nation’s mayors are waging against the National Rifle Association.

In the truest tradition of opposition research, the mayors’ “Demand A Plan” campaign has fielded a third-quarter ad in Super Bowl XLVII that places the words of NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre deep in his own end zone.

In a May 1999 congressional hearing, LaPierre listed the gun measures that his organization found “reasonable.”

“We think it ‘s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone,” LaPierre told Congress in 1999, and that testimony is replayed in the ad aired by Mayors Against Illegal Guns – though, now, the NRA is calling more pervasive background checks no solution to  gun violence.

Background checks for all gun-buyers, including those at gun shows as well as those at retail stores, is the one measure that draws almost universal support in opinion polling. The mayors’ ad would appear to be a high-priced calculation that, for whatever happens with assault weapons or mega-ammunition clips in the Capitol Hill gun-control debate, there is one measure that the NRA, representing gun owners and manufacturers, cannot stop.

The ad is built around children,  in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders. “America can do this for us,” says one child in the ad, picturing children at play. “Please.”

Original post is Mayors’ Super Bowl Gun-Control Ad: Hail Mary Against the NRA’s Defense by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ben Liebenberg/AP Photo

San Francisco 49ers guard Joe Looney is interviewed during the Super Bowl XLVII Media Day at the Superdome on Jan. 29, 2013 in New Orleans.

The folks at the Border Patrol aren’t taking all the criticism about lax enforcement lying down.

For all the flak that  U.S. Immigration and Customs takes from members of Congress for the influx of undocumented immigrants across that 2,000-mile border with Mexico, this is one agency that won’t be outdone when it comes to blocking copyright violators for the NFL.

ICE Director John Morton plans to join the National Football League’s vice president for legal affairs, Anastasia Danias, tomorrow in New Orleans — site of Super Bowl XLVII, in case you haven’t been watching the Kate Upton Mercedes-washing commercials (and way to go with those Superdome naming rights)  – to announce seizures of sports-related counterfeit merchandise and Web-sites leading up to the big game Sunday.

It’s all part of “Operation Red Zone,” which we thought was a deodorant.

Original post is Super Bowl Crackdown: ICE in Action by Political Capital.

Camp David

President John F. Kennedy shot skeet at Camp David, shown here with David Niven and The Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee in 1963. Camp David Photo.President John F. Kennedy shot skeet at Camp David, shown here with David Niven and The Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee in 1963.

President Barack Obama, seeking a ban on assault weapons, says he shoots skeet “all the time” at Camp David.

Obama told The New Republic magazine in an interview that at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s wooded Catoctin Mountains “we do skeet shooting all the time.”

“Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there” to shoot skeet, Obama added in an interview published in the magazine’s Feb. 11 issue.

President Dwight Eisenhower, who had the good sense to rename the presidential retreat for grandson David — it had been known as Shangri-La before then — installed the skeet shooting range in the 1950s.

Obama, father of two daughters, mentioned his interest in skeet shooting in response to a question on whether he had ever fired a gun.

Obama has responded to a shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school last month by proposing legislation to mandate background checks for all gun buyers, ban high-capacity ammunition clips and reinstate a ban on sales of assault weapons. Obama also signed 23 executive actions aimed at circumventing congressional opposition to new gun restrictions, including several designed to maximize prosecution of gun crimes and improve access to government data for background checks.

Twenty students and six educators were killed in a mass shooting Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Skeet shooting involves shotguns, not Bushmasters. And there are no mega-clips involved.

The president also expressed concern about violence and injuries in professional and intercollegiate football in this interview, saying he would “think long and hard” if he had a son before allowing him to play. Obama, an avowed sports fan, says the National Collegiate Athletic Association in particular should consider rules changes in view of emerging evidence on long-term health consequences of head blows suffered by players.

He said he is “more worried” about amateur college players than professional National Football League players who are “grown men” represented by a union and paid a salary.

“You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on,” Obama said in the interview. “That’s something that I’d like to see the NCAA think about.”

Obama predicted that football rules will “probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.” He said the while rules changes to tamp down violence “may make it a little bit less exciting,” the result “will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won’t have to examine our consciences quite as much.”

Original post is Obama Shoots Skeet at Camp David — and Has Advice for the NCAA by Political Capital.

Photograph by Robert E. Klein/AP Photo

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, left, greets Bob McNair owner of the Houston Texans before a football game in this file photo.

There’s a big National Football League showdown tonight between the 11-1 Houston Texans and the 9-3 New England Patriots, two division-leading teams run by active political donors.

Texans owner Robert McNair gave $2 million this year to a super-political action committee, Restore Our Future, that helped Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.  McNair gave $1 million in October to another Republican super-PAC, American Crossroads, and $100,000 last year to a super-PAC that aided Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s unsuccessful White House bid.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is a frequent political donor who gives money almost exclusively to Democratic candidates. He donated $40,000 this year to a political fund authorized by President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, the Democratic National Committee and some state Democratic parties.

Romney had the edge over Obama among sports-team owners, while more players backed the president, my colleague Jonathan D. Salant wrote in May. Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, was a top Romney fundraiser and surrogate.

Original post is Republican McNair’s Texans Face Democrat Kraft’s Patriots by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Brandon Marshall #15 of the Chicago Bears runs after a catch in the final minute of regulation time against the Seattle Seahawks at Soldier Field on December 2, 2012.

The Chicago Bears — “da Bears,” in President Barack Obama’s hometown — will be the next Windy City sports team to win a league championship.

So said the president during his Twitter chat about the fiscal cliff  today — touting his plan to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire for wealthier Americans while extending them for those earning under $250,000 a year.

He chose the National Football League team over basketball’s Chicago Bulls. The National Hockey League lockout has shuttered the Chicago Blackhawks.

“Da Bears still gotta shot despite sad loss this weekend,” Obama tweeted.

The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Bears in overtime, 23-17.

Then again, the Bulls’ Derrick Rose, who is recovering from ACL surgery, could return for the playoffs if the team gets there, the president said.

Original post is Obama: `Da Bears… Gotta Shot’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Eric Francis/ Bloomberg

Butterball turkeys for sale in Omaha, Nebraska.

Groups tied to the Thanksgiving holiday are spending millions of dollars in the hope that they can give thanks to the federal officials and lawmakers who support them on their issues.

Bloomberg Government analyst Peter Brusoe offers some examples:

• Seaboard Corp., the parent company of Butterball, spent $145,000 through Sept. 30 on such issues as grain inspection and mandatory country of origin legislation.

• Perdue Farms Inc., where a tough man makes a tender chicken, spent $60,000 as it lobbied on the farm bill.

• Campbell Soup Co., the parent company of Pepperidge Farm, spent $80,000 on food labeling, agriculture spending and food safety.

• Kraft Foods, the makers of Stove Top Stuffing, spent $1.9 million on issues such as dairy pricing and animal antibiotic use.

• Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. spent $300,000 lobbying on hunger issues and government purchases of cranberries.

• The National Turkey Federation spent $105,000 on agriculture spending, antibiotics given to animals, and other legislation involving drugs and animals.

• The National Potato Council’s issues, on which it spent $60,000 this year, included nutrition programs and immigration.

•  And the National Football League spent $535,000 on online gambling and disability benefits.

Original post is Lobbyists Spend Millions to Talk Turkey by Political Capital.

Photograph by Matt Sullivan/Getty Images

Cleveland Browns' new owner Jimmy Haslam sits in the "Dog Pound" in the first half of their game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Cleveland Browns Stadium on August 24, 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jimmy Haslam III, approved this week as new owner of the Cleveland Browns, will feel right at home during league meetings when the discussion turns to politics.

Many more National Football League owners support Republicans over Democrats, and Haslam is no exception, Bloomberg reports today.

Besides giving $2,500 to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Haslam gave $37,500 to the pro-Romney super-political action committee American Crossroads and $25,000 to the Republican National Committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Original post is New Browns Owner Joins Colleagues in Backing Republicans by Political Capital.

Photograph by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Wide receiver Golden Tate #81 of the Seattle Seahawks makes a catch in the end zone to defeat the Green Bay Packers on a controversial call by the officials at CenturyLink Field on Sept. 24, 2012 in Seattle, Washington.

There are a lot of things that require situational awareness when one is running for president.

Sometimes it’s the latest economic statistics.

Sometimes it’s the latest foreign policy crisis.

Sometimes it’s sports or pop culture.

Sports –something President Barack Obama is mildly obsessed with — isn’t a strength for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. He often says so himself on the campaign trail. While he has a resting heart rate in the 40s from his disciplined life and regular exercise, he regularly admits he’s not a great athlete.

When a local reporter today asked him about the NFL referees’ strike being settled, Romney appeared not to know the news.

“I sure hope they do,” he said after noon today, as he shook hands with supporters outside a campaign event at an American Legion post in Springfield, Virginia.

Earlier today, the White House’s Jay Carney, aboard Air Force One, called the deal struck late last night between the referees and the NFL “a great day for America.”

Original post is NFL Ref Deal News to Romney? by Political Capital.