He probably won’t run for New York governor but might for the U.S. Senate … or will he?
     
That’s the speculation swirling around Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former New York City mayor who walked tall after the Sept. 11 attacks and ran for U.S. president in 2008.
    
A spokeswoman says the 65-year-old former federal prosecutor has made no decisions.
    
But the New York Daily News, the New York Times  and the New York Post  all report that Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor in 2010.
    
Analysts think he could defeat Democratic incumbent Governor David Paterson without much fuss. But overcoming a possible challenge from New York’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, could be have been difficult. Cuomo has not announced his candidacy.
    
The Daily News reports that Giuliani is strongly considering a Senate run against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. Clinton, who lost in last year’s Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, is now U.S. secretary of state.

The Daily News cites poll numbers showing Giuliani losing to Cuomo 53 percent to 43 percent in a race for governor,  but beating Gillibrand 54 percent to 40 percent for the Senate.

But the Senate speculation may not last long.

The New York Post quotes people close to Giuliani as saying a run for the Senate is unlikely.

And even the Daily News  seems to be hedging its bets with a story saying Giuliani doesn’t need to run for the Senate because he already has plenty of money and influence and a private life that’s working out just fine.
    
Giuliani ran for the Senate in a 2000 campaign that pitted him against Clinton. But events and declining poll numbers were against him and he withdrew after a quick succession of revelations: he had prostate cancer, he had a girlfriend, and he was separating from his second wife.
    
Giuliani has since beaten cancer, divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, and married his former girlfriend, Judith Nathan.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Giuliani)

No one can remember the last time they had a full House of Representatives committee hearing on whether to lift the U.S. travel ban on Castro’s Cuba.

Perhaps that’s why some strong feelings spilled out into the open.

Florida Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a staunch defender of keeping the decades-old travel ban, told one witness who had advocated lifting it that she found some of his comments “shameful.”

The witness, retired U.S. General Barry McCaffrey, riposted that he was offended by Ros-Lehtinen’s “marginalization” of his viewpoint, adding that her line of questioning was “silly.”

The hearing Thursday of the House Foreign Affairs committee started out peacefully enough. Chairman Howard Berman said lawmakers should examine why Cuba was “the only country in the world where our people are not allowed to go.”

Most of the witnesses then spoke in favor of changing U.S. policy, which was launched in the 1960s in a Cold War bid to isolate Fidel Castro.

But Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American born in Havana, was clearly determined to resist what proponents say is their best chance in years to lift the ban on travel to Communist Cuba, 90 miles from her state.

She mocked a reference McCaffrey had made to “Communist morality” and rolled her eyes when McCaffrey said he had once spent seven hours with Castro.

“I always find it intriguing that people are so proud of the number of hours that Castro spent with them,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

McCaffrey, who once headed the U.S. Southern command coordinating U.S. national security operations in Latin America, was irked that Ros-Lehtinen had not referred to him by the title of general.

He corrected her, and for that he got an apology.

Other lawmakers and witnesses tangled over whether they had done enough to help anti-Castro dissidents while visiting Cuba (under apparent exceptions to the U.S. travel ban.)

They also debated whether, if a flood of American tourists were suddenly allowed to visit Cuba, would they be allowed to meet anyone other than hotel workers, or would they have enough Spanish to spread democracy.

Representative Albio Sires, who was also born in Cuba, pointed out that not everyone was fluent in Spanish who claimed to be. His own brothers’ Spanish was “an embarrassment,” he said.

Republican Representative Jeff Flake said he was offended by a comment from another witness, Ambassador James Cason, that tourists go to Cuba for “rum, sun, cigars, song and sex.”

Cason is a former chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and he opposes lifting the travel ban.

One thing that did become clear during the hearing: the 47-member committee is a real battleground for efforts to lift the travel ban.

In opening statements, 15 members spoke against lifting the travel ban and 10 favored lifting it. No action is expected before next year.

Berman, who favors lifting the travel restrictions, called the hearing “a great example of democracy in action.”

“One thing I think the entire committee shares is a desire that one day in Cuba, that kind of peaceful clash of ideas can be expressed in the political system,” he said.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas (Ros-Lehtinen in Honduras in October); Reuters/Enrique de la Osa (Cuba’s Capitol building at sunet Oct. 19)

Like one of those grizzly bears way up yonder in Alaska, Sarah Palin was in hibernation for months while she wrote her book. And now that the book is out, she’s become unplugged.

The conservative firebrand, who says she was all “bottled up” by the John McCain staff on the campaign trail last year, is chock full of opinions and letting lose on all manner of subjects.

Let’s go over several of them.

The shootings at Fort Hood were “an act of terrorism” and authorities missed “massive warning flags” about the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, she said.

“And I think it was quite unfortunate that, to me, it was a fear of being politically incorrect, to not — I’m going to use the word — profile this guy, profile in the sense of finding out what his radical beliefs were,” she told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.

Over at ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Barbara Walters asked Palin what she would do about 10.2 percent unemployment if she were president.

“I’d start cutting taxes and allowing our small businesses to keep more of what they’re earning, more of what they’re producing, more of what they own and earn so that they can start reinvesting in their businesses and expand and hire more people,” Palin said.

President Barack Obama’s healthcare and energy plans are “back-assward ways of trying to fix the economy,” she said.

Turning to foreign policy, Palin disagreed with Obama’s pressure on Israel to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements.

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon,” she told Barbara Walters.

“Because that population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead and I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand,” she said.

What about Obama’s lengthy quest for an Afghanistan strategy? Go ahead and send more troops, she said.

“It frustrates me and frightens me, and many Americans, that President Obama is dithering around with the decision in Afghanistan,” she said.

Hannity, on his radio show, asked Palin about the 2010 congressional elections, in which Republicans hope to rebound from 2006 and 2008 losses and cut into Democratic majorities in the U.S. Congress.

“There’s going to be a huge shift,” she said. “2010 is going to be an earthquake politically across our country because people are just as you are suggesting not putting a lot of hope in this Congress,” she said.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook (Palin autographs copies of her book “Going Rogue: An American Life” in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Nov. 18; Palin’s book tour bus)

A new poll by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that concern about federal funding for abortion is very low on the list of factors driving opposition to President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul America’s healthcare system.

The results of the poll, released on Thursday, show that just 3 percent of healthcare opponents cited abortion funding as their main reason for opposing congressional healthcare proposals.

The biggest reasons, cited by 27 percent of respondents to an open-ended question about their opposition, were that the overhaul would be too expensive and lead to higher deficits and taxes. Another 27 percent said they did not want government involvement in healthcare.

The nationwide poll of more than 1,000 Americans was conducted from Nov. 12 to 15.

The poll’s publication comes as the U.S. Senate prepares to begin debate on its version of a healthcare bill that does not include language approved earlier this month by the House that would strengthen the existing prohibition on using federal funds for abortion.

Many analysts say the abortion issue — which has been fanned by conservative evangelicals associated with the Republican Party and Catholic clergy whose flock lean to the Democratic Party — threatens to unravel Obama’s top domestic priority.

But the Pew poll highlights its apparently minor role in stirring opposition to the healthcare push which aims, among other things, to expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack health insurance.

Has this hornet’s nest been opened by a vocal but very small minority of the U.S. public, which would appear to have more pressing concerns when it comes to healthcare?

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Anti-abortion activist wears mirrored sunglasses and a piece of tape over his mouth in Washington, June 1, 2009)

She represented President George W. Bush before the world’s media and now is a commentator for Fox News. And she’s been quite a vocal critic of the current White House.

But he nominated her anyway.

President Barack Obama nominated his predecessor’s press secretary, Dana Perino, to the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors.

We asked Perino about it, and she told us that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put her name forward for the position.

“I was honored that Senator McConnell recommended me, and humbled when I found out it was accepted. I look forward to meeting the senators and to hopefully earning their support for confirmation.”

Yup, she still has to get the Senate’s stamp of approval.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Perino at White House daily press briefing in 2007)

The Senate’s healthcare reform legislation published by Democratic leaders last night included a big surprise for anyone saving up to enhance or undo what God gave them — a new 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures.

The tax would take effect beginning in January and is being proposed as part of the sweeping healthcare overhaul to partly pay the cost of helping millions of uninsured people obtain medical coverage.

It would raise nearly $6 billion over 10 years, and who knows, perhaps even a few lawmakers might be enhancing the Federal Treasury if the tax ends up in a final bill signed by President Barack Obama.

The tax proposal came as a bit of a surprise to investors, and shares of Allergan, which markets popular wrinkle fighting Botox and Natrelle breast implants, fell in early trading along with the share prices of other makers of products for cosmetic procedures.

It is possible that the proposed new tax will be cut from the bill during the upcoming Senate debate.

And if it survives the Senate, there is still the question of whether House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will nip and tuck the proposal right out of the bill.

Do you think elective cosmetic surgery should be taxed?

For more Reuters coverage on healthcare reform click here.

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Photo credits: Reuters/Jim Young (Senator Reid looks at Senator Max Baucus as he speaks about meeting with president in August), Reuters/Luke MacGregor (woman holds breast implant at plastic surgeons conference)

The Senate has spoken — for the moment. But it’s definitely not in one voice.

Senator Harry Reid, the leader of Democrats, last night unveiled a healthcare bill cobbled from two Senate versions. 

At 2,074 pages, it is longer than the 1,990-page House bill. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put the plan’s 10-year cost at $849 billion, which is below President Barack Obama’s $900 billion goal and the House bill which came in at more than $1 trillion.

So apparently when it comes to legislation, more pages mean lower cost.

Republicans are gearing up for a fight including possible delay tactics such as forcing the whole bill to be read out loud on the Senate floor. “It’s going to be a holy war,” Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, tells the Los Angeles Times.

Offerings from morning TV shows: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell is following Sarah Palin’s book tour and reported from Fort Wayne, Indiana, in front of a long line of people waiting for the former Alaska governor turned former Republican vice presidential candidate turned current author.

NBC’s “Today” show also had Twilight’s Robert Pattinson ahead of the movie release of “New Moon” — this is one of those if you have to ask (as I did) moments… One woman in the crowd outside the NBC studio was excitedly showing Pattinson a doll and telling him it was of him — that’s real star power.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in October), Reuters/Fred Prouser (Pattinson at Los Angeles premiere)

After the sharp exchanges of words between Attorney General Eric Holder and senators about trying the Sept. 11 suspects in criminal court fell quiet, a soft-spoken woman who lost her 31-year-old son that day approached.

Alice Hoagland’s son Mark Bingham died on hijacked United Flight 93 which crashed in rural Pennsylvania and she had come to Washington to attend the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing of the Justice Department where Holder’s decision about prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was the main subject.

“I take great exception to your decision to give short shrift to the military commissions and to put the five most heinous criminals and war criminals into court in New York City,” an emotional Hoagland told Holder. “It will give these ugly people, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh especially, very eloquent access to all the media sources in the United States.”

That is one of several complaints some family members of the Sept. 11 victims have made. Others have worried that it will make the trials and prisons targets for attack. But some families have welcomed the trials in New York and want the suspects prosecuted quickly.

Holder took exception to Hoagland’s points, gently but firmly telling her that he did fully consider the military commissions as a venue for the terrorism suspects and that Mohammed and the others had tried to use the military commission trials at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a platform for espousing their views.

“This was a tough decision,” he told Hoagland, adding that he is privy to evidence that has not been made public that he believes makes the government’s case to convict the five suspects.

“This is almost a trust me thing I suppose, there are reasons why bringing this case in an Article III (criminal) court when it comes to the admissibility of certain evidence is really the right way to go and really maximizes our chances of getting a successful outcome,” Holder said.

After their five-minute encounter, Hoagland told reporters that while she appreciated Holder’s remarks, she was unpersuaded and even opposed his decision to seek the death penalty against Mohammed and the others.

“Listening to Attorney General Holder throughout the course of this morning into the afternoon has persuaded me that he is a sincere man,” she said. “I don’t think he’s changed his mind and I know I haven’t changed my mind.”

Click here for more Reuters political coverage.

– Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Holder testifies to Senate Judiciary Committee.)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin’s new memoir, “Going Rogue,” already has been strongly criticized by John McCain’s aides for her account as a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with him in their unsuccessful 2008 race for the White House.

Now, add Alaskan experts who were involved in the case over the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster saying her account over her role in the litigation is distorted for a number of reasons.

In the book, Palin claims to have helped the fishermen, Alaska Natives and other individuals suing Exxon over spill damages prevail in their legal case.

“It took years for Alaska to achieve victory. As governor, I directed our attorney general to write an amicus brief in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in front of the highest court in the land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people,” she writes in her book. “Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.”

But Palin’s claims of victory for the plaintiffs and of playing a role in achieving that victory are highly distorted, said the chief attorney for the approximately 32,000 plaintiffs that sued Exxon over damages from the worst oil-tanker spill in U.S. waters.

“That is the most cockamamie bullshit,” said Dave Oesting of Anchorage, lead plaintiff attorney in the private litigants’ civil case against Exxon and its successor, Exxon Mobil Corp. “She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and she didn’t know what it was about.”

While the Supreme Court in its June 25, 2008 decision did uphold the right of the plaintiffs to receive some punitive damages, it slashed the award dramatically. The Supreme Court ordered that punitive damages be no more than $507.5 million, down from the $2.5 billion ordered by a U.S. appeals court and the jury’s original verdict of $5 billion.

While the plaintiffs did manage to salvage some punitive damages, the result was hardly a win, said Riki Ott, a scientist, environmental activist and longtime commercial fisherman from the Prince William Sound town of Cordova.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace to the legal system. It’s a disgrace to intellectual honesty to call 10 cents on the dollar a win for Alaskans,” said Ott, who has written a book about the spill and the failure of the justice system to address it.

At the time of the Supreme Court ruling, even Palin described it as a bitter disappointment to Alaskans rather than a victory. In an interview with Reuters, she said the state will tighten its oversight of the oil industry in response. “Exxon will know that we’re very disappointed in this ruling,” she said then.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage.

- Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Blake (workers clean up from the Exxon spill.)

The flap over Sarah Palin’s photo on the cover of Newsweek magazine is turning into a fray…

To use the words of TV detective Monk, “here’s what happened…”

Newsweek put Palin on the cover ahead of the release of her book “Going Rogue.”

Usually magazine covers before a big book launch are prized, but the former Republican vice presidential candidate didn’t quite see it that way.

Palin criticized Newsweek for using the photo of her in athletic gear which was taken for an interview with a running magazine, and wrote on her Facebook page: “The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.”

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham responded with a statement of his own on the magazine’s Web site: “We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do,” he said. “We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard.”

Now Runner’s World has decided to join in and put an Editor’s Note on its Web site saying the Newsweek cover photo of Palin was shot exclusively for the August issue of the running magazine and those photos are “still under a one-year embargo.”

So we called Newsweek and spokesman Frank De Maria said: “We purchased the photo from an agency and we were not aware of any issues with it.”

A year since the election, Palin still manages to stir controversy — and this wasn’t even about her book…

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi (man holding guitar with Palin written on it in July)