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.

Chrysler and Fiat Chairman Sergio Marchionne should be expecting a call from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

No, his company’s not in trouble – far from it.

Touring the floor of the Washington Auto Show this morning, the departing DOT leader gushed about the company’s Super Bowl ad for Dodge Ram trucks — the one with the voice-over of a 1978 speech by the late broadcaster Paul Harvey called “So God Made a Farmer.”

“It is the most creative, clever ad that I’ve probably ever seen,” said LaHood, who, as a congressman from Peoria, Illinois, represented a largely rural district before becoming transportation secretary.

“I will probably call Mr. Marchionne” to compliment it.

And tell him the ad probably played well in Peoria.

Original post is Dodge Ram Loaded w/ Paul Harvey’s ‘God Made a Farmer:’ ‘Most Clever’ 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 Charlie Riedel/AP Photo

People photograph the Roman numerals for NFL Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 1, 2013, in New Orleans.

Greg Cosell, senior producer at NFL Films Inc. and nephew of the legendary ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell, successfully predicted the New York Giants’ upset of the New England Patriots in last year’s Super Bowl.

This year, Cosell says, the Baltimore Ravens will defeat the San Francisco 49ers:

23-20.

The Ravens are “underrated by many, many people,” Cosell said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend before Sunday night’s national championship. “This game will not be quite as high-scoring as some think.”

Cosell notes that Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has won more games, including playoffs, than any other quarterback in his first five years. He’s also won more road playoff games than any quarterback in history.

“I think Joe Flacco has been a fine quarterback for much of his career, and he really should have been in the Super Bowl last year,” Cosell said, “if a receiver did not drop a perfectly thrown ball.”

Original post is Cosell Predicts Ravens in Super Bowl by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sascha Darmer/DAPD/AP Photo

Beyonce in Berlin in this file photo.

Beyonce played Obama’s inauguration.

Beyonce is going to play the Super Bowl.

The singer was lip-syncing outside the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

She was not lip-syncing, it appeared, at her news conference today in advance of her Super Bowl half-time performance Sunday.

The singer asked the attendees of the conference to stand.

Then she belted out the National Anthem a cappella.

“Any questions,” she asked.

Yes, there was a question about that inaugural performance.

“I am a perfectionist,” she explained, somewhat nervously. “I practice until my feet bleed… I did not have time to practice with the orchestra (The President’s Marine Band) … I did not feel comfortable taking a risk” in the singing of the anthem for President Barack Obama’s second swearing-in on Jan. 21. “I am very proud of my performance.”

Come Sunday, the show will not be on Memorex: “I will absolutely be singing live,” she said of Super Bowl XLVII. “This is what I was born to do.”

Original post is Beyonce Belts Out Anthem: Super Bowl Preview 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.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Singer Beyonce performs the national anthem during the presidential inauguration in Washington on Jan. 21, 2013.

Updated Jan. 23

Is it Karaoke, if it’s your own song?

Is it real, or is it Memorex?

Beyonce’s lip-synced rendition of the National Anthem at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration wasn’t ground-breaking: Cellist Yo-Yo Ma bow-synced his performance at Obama’s first inauguration because it was so cold there.

Jennifer Hudson lip-synced the National Anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl, and Whitney Houston lipped it at the 1991 Super Bowl.

The Times of London broke the news about Beyonce — The New York Times followed with a tweet: “Beyonce it ain’t so” — with a statement from the Marine Corps Band’s spokeswoman: “We did pre-record it and it was Beyoncé’s decision at the last minute to go with the pre-recorded version. We pre-recorded all music as a matter of course and have done since time immemorial. This is our 54th inauguration… There is no question of there not being any music — it’s not because the performer cannot do it.”

Master Sgt. Kristin duBois of the Band (the Marines’) told the New York Times the weather was favorable and the players were having no troublewith the prelude to the ceremony: “We don’t know why (Beyonce went with the prepared tape). But that is what we were instructed to do so that is what we did. It’s not because Beyoncé can’t sing. We all know Beyoncé can sing. We all know the Marine Band can play.”

Byy Tuesday afternoon, the Marine Corps was backing off duBois’s statement, saying that the band had not played live though was not in a position to know if Beyonce had sung live or not. Capt. Gregory A. Wolf, a Marine Corps spokesman, told the New York Times that the corps had determined that a live performance of the anthem was ill advised because its members had little time to rehearse with the singer.

Aretha Franklin, who performed the National Anthem for Obama’s first inauguration, is quoted by the Daily Mail — they seem to be having no end of fun with this story in Great Britain — as saying:  “’When I heard the news this evening that she was pre-recorded I really laughed. I thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather. ‘When I heard that I just really cracked up. I thought it was really funny, but she did a beautiful job with the pre-record.’

Milli Vanilli got a Grammy revoked for taking the Greyhound route through the recording studio: The band-leaders let others do the singing for them.

Ever since former President George H.W. Bush sealed his later-broken 1988 promise not to raise taxes with his “Read My Lips,” Washington has been watching every movement of the mouths at momentous times.

They’ll be watching closely in four more years.

Original post is Beyonce’s Watch-My-Lips-Spangled Banner by Political Capital.