From the “Hammer” to “Wild Thing”: Tom DeLay Makes his Debut on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars”

ABC News’ Kristina Wong reports: Donning brown pants and a matching vest lined with leopard print and rhinestones, former House Republican majority leader and whip Tom DeLay made his debut Monday night on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

In the outfit DeLay described on Twitter as “Elvis meets animal print,” DeLay and his partner Cheryl Burke cha-cha’ed to the song “Wild Thing”.

During the dance, DeLay played the air guitar, slid across the dance floor on his knees, pointed at the camera, and mouthed “Wild thing, I think I love you.” At age 62, the man nicknamed “the Hammer” for his aggressive style of keeping his party members’ votes in line, was, according to judge Carrie Ann Inaba, “very light on his feet.”

“That was surreal,” Inaba said. “Tom DeLay – you’re wild thing!”

“You’re crazier than Sarah Palin!” exclaimed judge Bruno Tonioli. Yet the judges’ scores on DeLay and Burke’s first dance were more muted.

While Inaba said DeLay had “a natural grace,” DeLay and Burke were given a 6, 5 and 5, on aone-to-10 scale, 10 being the best.

“Parts were magic, parts were tragic,” said judge Len Goodman.

Clearly reveling inhis “wild” exhibition, DeLay quipped, “I got bigger critics than those judges.”

Ralph Nader: Obama Needs to Stand With Progressives; ‘He’s Got to Learn How to Fight’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: As President Obama takes fire from his left on health care, Ralph Nader said today that the president’s push is foundering because Obama hasn’t learned to stand strong with his progressive allies.

“The minute either the Blue Dog Democrats or people like Senator [Max] Baucus — a Republican in Democratic clothing — see any kind of ambiguity, any kind of weakness . . . anytime they see that, they eat him alive,” Nader, the veteran consumer advocate and four-time presidential candidate, told us today on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line.”

“And he’s got to learn how to fight, how to draw clear lines, and how to go to his progressive base,” Nader said. “He’s never invited progressive leaders to the White House, and they represent a huge constituency that elected him. But he invites CEOs to the White House, of health insurance companies and drug companies. You don’t win that way.”

Nader, who has long advocated for a single-payer health care system, said Obama is suffering because of the complexity of his proposals.

“No matter what the medium is — you can have massive TV coverage, if your message is too complex, it’s too abstract and you’re not standing with a veto threat you know, to really shape the Congress the way LBJ would, it’s not going to get across,” Nader said.

Single-payer health care is one theme of Nader’s new book, his first work of fiction: “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” The book, which Nader is calling a work of “political science fiction,” publishes tomorrow.

The book imagines 17 ultra-rich, liberal-leaning individuals — George Soros, Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, Yoko Ono, Bill Cosby, and William Gates Sr. among them — gathering in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to launch a new political movement.

“Although it’s a big book, every step of the way the reader can say, ‘You know, this could happen.’ Why? Because 17 super-rich older and enlightened Americans decide that they’re going to make it happen,” Nader told us. “And they meet in Maui in a hotel on top of a mountain in January 2006, and they plan the strategy. It’s a smart strategy, it’s . . . bottom up. It mobilizes people in their various roles as consumers, taxpayers, workers, and voters. And they really pour the money in.”

Click HERE to see the full interview with Ralph Nader.

We also checked in with Time’s Karen Tumulty, who talked about some changes that are likely to be made to the Baucus health care bill, and summed up negotiations with Republicans: “I think that from here on out, whatever Olympia wants, Olympia gets,” Tumulty said, referring to Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Watch the discussion with Karen Tumulty HERE.

Mike Huckabee Still Tops with Social Conservatives

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee beat his nearest rivals by more than a two-to-one margin in a 2012 presidential straw poll of 597 socially conservative activists who attended this weekend’s Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C.

“He is well oiled,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council. “I don’t think he missed a beat from when he left off in the election.”

Huckabee, a silver-tongued former Baptist minister who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and is now a talk-show host on the Fox News Channel, garnered 28 percent, which translated into 170 votes.

There was a four-way tie for second place among former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

Romney got 12.40 percent (74 votes), Pawlenty got 12.23 percent (73 votes), Palin got 12.06 percent (72 votes), and Pence got 11.89 percent (71 votes).

The Values Voters straw poll is a glimpse into the support that potential Republican presidential candidates have among the social conservatives who paid $99 to attend the summit.

Huckabee’s Friday morning speech, which was laced with his trademark humor, honed in on the cultural issues that are of greatest concern for the social conservatives who attended the conference.

“There are so many people who have told us as conservatives that we should move to the center on the sanctity of marriage or the sanctity of life,” Huckabee said. “Just move to the center.

“I’m not sure the center makes a whole lot of sense when it’s coming from people who certainly don’t have our interest, or our country’s interest, at heart,” he added.

Although Huckabee ran away with the straw poll, there are signs that Democrats do not take his potential candidacy as seriously as they do the potential bids of two of the second-place finishers.

Following the Friday and Saturday speeches, the Democratic National Committee issued statements harshly criticizing only two of the Republicans: Pawlenty and Romney.

There was no such instant response for Huckabee.

While Huckabee ran away with the straw poll, Pawlenty can be proud that he matched the performance of the better-known Romney.

Pawlenty, an evangelical Christian, connected with the audience during Friday’s speech by quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14, the same passage of the Bible that former President Ronald Reagan had open when he took the presidential oath.

Without prompting, the audience joined Pawlenty in reciting the verse: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

During Saturday’s press conference announcing the straw poll results, Perkins described Pawlenty as a Republican with potential because he is a conservative who has managed to win in a state that has traditionally voted Democratic.

“He is a conservative with a core set of beliefs,” said Perkins.

“But he has won in a moderate-to-liberal state,” he added, referring to Minnesota, a state with a long progressive tradition.

In total, there were nine Republicans on the straw poll ballot.

Rounding out the field, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received 6.7 percent (40 votes), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal received received 4.7 percent (28 votes), former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum received 2.5 percent (15 votes), and Texas Rep. Ron Paul received 2.2 percent (13 votes).

Five percent of straw poll participants were undecided (31 votes) and 2 percent voted for write-in candidates (10 votes).

Candidates did not ask the Family Research Council to place their names on the ballot. Candidates did, however, have the opportunity to remove their names from the ballot.

The straw poll ballot originally included Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, but FRC agreed to remove him from the ballot after the Texas governor told Perkins that he was focused on his 2010 campaign for re-election.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a fellow Republican, is challenging Perry in the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary.

Four of the nine candidates spoke to the conference in open session: Huckabee, Romney, Pawlenty, and Pence.

One of the nine Republican candidates — former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — spoke to the conference in a closed press session.

Four other Republicans appeared on the ballot but did not speak to the conference: Palin, Gingrich, Paul, and Jindal.

In addition to the 2012 candidate preference question, the straw poll also tested issue preferences.

By far, the most important issue was abortion, an issue which was cited by 41 percent (243 voters). The second most important issue was protection of religious liberty which garnered 18 percent, and same-sex “marriage” which garnered 7 percent.

The Values Voters Summit took place at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Grassley, Frustrated with WH, Says Baucus Bill Not Bipartisan

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said today that while Chairman Max Baucus' has bipartisan elements in it, it is not a bipartisan bill.

“This bill, except for five or six or seven or eight or nine or 10 — I don't know how many — things that weren't resolved has been put together with some Republican input. But to say that this is a bipartisan bill would be as intellectually dishonest as the Secretary of HHS saying on television recently that because Republicans had 86 amendments put on the HELP bill that it was a bipartisan bill.”

Grassley was clearly frustrated with the White House and Senate Democrats for wanting Baucus, D-Mont., to move forward with the bill without full buy-in from Republicans.

“We're kind of pre-empted from doing it right by being pushed or shoved aside by the leadership and by the White House because they want to move on,” Grassley said. “Particularly in light of the fact that so much of this bill doesn't go into effect until 2013. So what's another two or three weeks, if it could be done in another two or three weeks and end up with a bill that could have broad bipartisan support. “

And he said the White House caused strains in the negotiations this summer by saying Grassley, R-Iowa, was not negotiating in good faith.

“We've had 31 meetings of these group of six. We've had nine walk-throughs. I've had 156 meetings in my office dealing with health care, either with constituents or with other members. . . . And then to be accused of being political in the month of August when [I] didn't say anything different in Iowa than what I've been saying in Washington. That's not a very good environment to carry on a conversation,” he said.

Grassley danced around the fundraising letter his campaign sent to supporters in August that said he was working to defeat “Obamacare.” Today, Grassley said “Obamacare” was meant in that letter to represent the “public option.”

Several Democrats expressed optimism about the Baucus Bill.

Said Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.: “It looked good.”

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., praised it as a measure that would bring “a lot of very positive transformation in the way we deliver health care.”

“Are there some pieces in it that I disagree with? Yes. And we're going to try to work on those,” Kerry said. “I think that people ought to feel positive about what's going on here. We're going to get a bill done, one way or the other. We will make changes in it.”

Kerry said one of his amendments would change the formula by which insurance companies are taxed for offering the high-cost insurance plans that many believe drive up the cost of care.

Many such plans are used by union members and Kerry said its important not ton pin health reform on “the workin' guy.”

Other amendments, he said, would tackle the affordability of insurance for the middle class.

Others said it needed more work. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said, “I think it needs more than just a few tweaks.”

ABC News? David Chalian Reports: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele doesn?t want the controversies and scandals surrounding a couple of high profile Republicans to be used as part of a ?broad brush sweep? depiction of the GOP at large.

?I don?t buy this broad brush sweep that a lot of folks want to do to take situations involving Sanford or Palin and make it writ large for every Republican in the country,? Steele said on ABC News? ?Top Line.?

Chairman Steele responded to a question about the four Republicans, including former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), he cited as rising stars in the party during a Fox News interview last February.

?If I knew what I know now, then, my answer probably would have been a little bit different. I certainly wouldn?t have put Sanford up as one of those stars of the party that were going to be looked to leadership because he?s got other issues he?s got to deal with,? said Steele.

Mr. Steele called former Gov. Sarah Palin?s (R-AK) decision to resign her office in the middle of her first term a personal and political decision he respects.

?She made a very personal, a very political decision for her to get out of the way of her state moving forward because her leadership had become a distraction with all the media attention and the attacks,? Steele said. ?She made, I think, a very personal decision. I respect that,? he added.

The GOP chairman argued his point by questioning if Democratic politicians should have had their reputations besmirched in the 1990s by Bill Clinton?s behavior.

?When the president, the former president of the united states is caught with an intern in his, underneath his desk, does that impugn every Democrat in the country?,? Steele asked.

Praising Republican candidates running for office across the country, including his party?s gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, Chairman Steele said he feels good about the current state of the GOP. ?We have a lot of work to do. We have a long way to go. But I feel good about where we are.?

To read the transcript of our interview with Michael Steele, click HERE.

ABC News’ Teddy Davis contributed to this report.

‘Sarah Palin with an Economics Degree’?

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

 

Fmr. Missouri treasurer Sarah Steeleman is weighing a 2010 GOP Senate primary against Rep. Roy Blunt, the former House Whip.
Ferdous Al-Faruque/ ABC News 

Former Missouri state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, 50, and her husband stopped by ABC’s Washington Bureau on Friday.

Steelman is weighing a Senate primary bid against Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., for the seat being vacated in 2010 by retiring Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.

Steelman was recently described by a GOP operative in Missouri as “Sarah Palin with an economics degree.”

What does Steelman think of the comparison?

“You might want to ask my husband that. I don’t know. I am who I am,” said Steelman, who earned her master’s in economics from the University of Missouri.

When husband David Steelman, the former Republican leader of the Missouri House, was brought into the Palin discussion, he quipped, “We have no helicopter wolf hunting in Missouri.”

Reflecting on Palin’s vice presidential run, Steelman suggested that the Alaska governor received scrutiny not faced by men.

“I’m not sure she was treated fairly,” said Steelman. “But politics is a tough game and when you get into the game you have to have pretty thick skin.”

“I think there’s a lot more scrutiny of women,” she continued. “You get asked questions about how you handle your family, and your responsibilities as a mother, that most men don’t get asked.”

“I’m not sure that a man ever gets asked that question,” she added.

So how would she run against Blunt who until last year served in the GOP’s House leadership?

By trying to tie him to the status quo.

“His Washington experience has gotten us into this mess,” she said.

Steelman’s two main gripes with Blunt are his vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill in September and his support for earmarks. Earlier this week, she sent Blunt a letter challenging him to take an anti-earmark pledge.

Blunt’s campaign responds to the bailout criticism by noting that he voted against releasing the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds earlier this year when it became clear to him that it lacked appropriate safeguards on how the money was being spent. Blunt’s office is also quick to point out that the September bailout was supported by Bond and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D).

While Blunt sponsored 25 earmarks in 2008 which totaled more than $46 million, according to Legistorm.com, a website devoted to government transparency, his team charges that it is “hypocritical” for Steelman to criticize him on this issue since she supported directing government funds to local projects when she served in the state legislature.

Although Steelman is styling herself as an outsider in her potential Senate run, she has not thought through whether she would accept money from registered lobbyists.

She also struggled to articulate her views on health care and President Obama’s plan to drawdown U.S. trooops in Iraq.

The winner of the GOP Senate primary in Missouri will likely face off against Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, the daughter of Mel Carnahan, the former Missouri governor who died in a plane crash while running for the U.S. Senate in 2000.

Mel Carnahan was elected posthumously to the U.S. Senate before being replaced temporarily by wife Jean Carnahan who lost the seat two years later.

Asked what she tells Republicans in Washington who worry that her potential challenge to Blunt might jeopardize the GOP’s chances of holding onto Bond’s Senate seat, Steelman said, “Primaries aren’t necessarily bad. What they should worry about is who can beat Robin Carnahan.”

ABC News’ Sara Just, Ian Cameron, and Ferdous Al-Faruque contributed to this report.