Former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., is making his way back into public life less than three years after a congressional page scandal forced him from Congress, and he isn't entirely ruling out a future bid for office.

"I doubt I will re-enter the political arena as an office-seeker, but I will use my experience and my voice to help others, to rally for economic sanity, to bring about real reforms on a local, state and even national level," Foley told Javier Manjarres according to the transcript of an interview published on the subscription-only part of the Web site of the Conservative Republican Alliance in Florida.

Manjarres interviewed Foley at the West Palm Beach restaurant Pistache last week after a fundraiser for Marco Rubio (Rush Limbaugh was there, too). He told Notepad his impression is that Foley is leaving his options open.

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the lone Jewish Republican in Congress, is slated to deliver a speech tomorrow to the Values Voters Summit in Washington several hours before the sun goes down and Rosh Hashanah, the two-day Jewish New Year holiday, begins.

Perhaps it's not surprising that a conference sponsored by such groups as the political action arms of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family -- whose parent organizations advocate for the Christianizing of American life -- would not generally be filled with Jews, many of whom are Democrats and very few of whom see the United States as "a Christian nation."

But Values Voters, which has drawn Jewish speakers in the past, can't possibly help its outreach efforts by scheduling its major conference during one of the holiest times on the Jewish calendar.

The results of its 2012 GOP presidential primary straw poll are due to be released at 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, smack dab in the middle of Rosh Hashanah. Though Cantor is the second-ranking House Republican and was, on occasion, mentioned as a VP candidate in 2008, he is not among the nine candidates listed in the straw poll.

A spokeswoman for the Family Research Council said she would check into the decision to hold the conference this weekend, but she never called back.

Shortly before they left town for the August recess, President Obama offered an open September invitation to his house for any lawmaker who wanted to discuss his health care overhaul plans in detail.

"They will have all of August to review the various legislative proposals. When we come back in September, I will be available to answer any question that members of Congress have. If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what's going on, I will be happy to do that," Obama said at a Raleigh, N.C., high school on July 29.

Now some of his harshest critics are calling him on that promise and asking for an invitation.

The Susan B. Anthony List is promising to spend $2 million in an ongoing campaign to pummel vulnerable House and Senate Democrats over the virtual certainty that Democratic health overhaul plans would increase access to insurance plans -- including publicly funded ones -- that cover abortion.

The SBA List is the conservative debutante answer to the liberal grand dame EMILY's List among abortion-focused political action committees. Hot-copy making Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., already has participated in a conference call with abortion foes as part of the campaign.

It has set its sights on Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, as well as Reps. Alan Grayson and Suzanne M. Kosmas of Florida, Debbie Halvorson of Illinois, Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland, Walt Minnick of Idaho, Glenn Nye and Tom Perriello of Virginia, Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire and Harry Teague of New Mexico.

"The Votes Have Consequences project will shine the light of the truth on legislators who favor government-backed abortion in health care reform," SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010, is calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer to apologize for a USA Today op-ed in which they cast aspersions on the patriotism of conservative protesters at recent town hall meetings on health care overhaul legislation.

"These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views -- but of the facts themselves," Pelosi and Hoyer wrote. "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

Ramsey, who is lieutenant governor by virtue of his position as speaker of the state Senate, sent an e-mail to supporters Thursday asking them to sign a petition demanding an apology from the House's top Democrats.

Republican and Democratic foes of abortion are so worried about taxpayers footing the bill for terminated pregnancies under a health care overhaul that they are starting to see signs of encroachment on abortion limitations where they don't exist -- at least not yet.

The clearest instance is a hypercharged reaction to the absence from the Senate's annual Financial Services spending bill of a ban on abortion coverage under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

"The text of S 1432 has just been made available online, with a startling revelation: The Smith Amendment tagged on the bill in the House, and prohibiting taxpayer subsidized abortions through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program has been deleted," anti-abortion activist Jill Stanek wrote on her blog Thursday. The blog post is making the electronic rounds on Capitol Hill and ended up in Notepad's inbox last night.

But the long-standing law -- "No funds appropriated by this act shall be available to pay for an abortion, or the administrative expenses in connection with any health plan under the Federal employees health benefits program which provides any benefits or coverage for abortions" -- has always been a House provision (note the reference in Stanek's blog to Rep. Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey).

Typically in recent years -- as is the case this year -- the Senate bill has been silent on the matter and the House provision has been included in the final law. Neither chamber has voted directly on the issue in years. When they have, abortion opponents have won consistently.

Still, an aide to a conservative senator said that fears about the larger health care overhaul providing for taxpayer-funded abortions, either through subsidized health insurance for individuals or coverage by a government-backed plan, are likely to bring heat on the Senate's omission of FEHBP ban.

"It won't come to senate floor without a fight," the aide said. "Taxpayers don't want to pay for abortions for federal employees."

Obviously, Buenos Aires isn't the best place to be if you want to run South Carolina. But for the crowded field of 2010 gubernatorial hopefuls, it's looking more and more like South Carolina isn't the best place to be, either.

That could boost the fortunes of Rep. J. Gresham Barrett, who publicly has avoided the palace intrigue in Columbia in the wake of Gov. Mark Sanford confessing that he had an affair with an Argentinian woman.

"If you exist, you're getting dirt on you. It's filthy. There is so much destruction. At the end of the day it will be the last man standing," said a South Carolina Republican strategist who has not taken sides in the 2010 gubernatorial race. "So maybe Gresham Barrett is the winner."