In his first nationally televised interview since stepping down from Congress in disgrace five years ago, Mark Foley advised Democratic New York Rep. Anthony Weiner he should consider doing the same.

“In my heart, you cannot fix this from inside that building,” Foley, a Palm Beach County Republican, told FoxNews television host Sean Hannity Thursday night.

Foley spoke candidly with Hannity in a 20-minute interview scheduled prior to the “Weinergate” scandal in which Weiner first claimed his Twitter account had been hacked but later tearfully admitted he had sent inappropriate photos and messages himself.

“You cannot fix your problem. Whatever it is that’s troubling him. Beautiful wife, wonderful family, a great constituency. Obviously wasn’t enough for either one of us. He’s not going to get better going back into the building and hope people give him a pass,” Foley said.

Weiner refuses to step down despite growing demands for his resignation, including from fellow Democrats, since the brash New York Democrat’s public confession Monday that he had sent lewd messages and photographs to six women over the past three years. Weiner last fall was the keynote speaker for Palm Beach County Democrats’ annual fund-raising dinner.

“I know what he’s going through from the feeling of remorse because there’s no question you feel terrible,” said Foley, who was forced to resign in 2006 over sexually charged text messages he sent to teenage males who had worked in the congressional page program.

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Just one day before the crucial vote that will decide whether his $75 million investment paid off, Rick Scott included West Palm Beach in a last-minute appeal to Republicans.

U.S. Sen. George LeMieux climbed on the stage with Scott, also joined by Palm Beach County homeboys U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, outgoing Senate president and chief financial officer candidate Jeff Atwater, and a host of other local officials.

Mark Foley, who once held Rooney’s Congressional seat, also showed up in the crowd at Park Avenue BBQ Grille.

PBC businessman and longtime GOP donor Llywd Ecclestone, who escaped the restaurant parking lot heat under an awning, said he supports Scott’s plan to get the state’s economy back on track.

“He will create jobs and that’s what we need,” Ecclestone said.

But Scott’s pledge of 700,000 jobs is an ambitious goal, the developer acknowledged.

“It’s going to be difficult. It’s not going to be easy,” Ecclestone said.

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UPDATE: Mayor Lois Frankel didn’t directly answer a question about the poll, telling a reporter “When I’m ready to talk about if and what I’m going to do, I’m going to let you know.”

Tongues are wagging again in West Palm Beach over the latest round of political polling calls, which included lots of questions about Mayor Lois Frankel and the term limits law that will prevent her from seeking a third term in March 2011.

Respondents over the weekend were asked their opinions of Frankel, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former West Palm Beach Mayor Nancy Graham. They were also asked about the city’s term-limits law and whether it should be scrapped or extended to three four-year terms instead of two for the mayor. There were also questions about the pay dispute between the city and the police union.

The Police Benevolent Association did conduct a poll a few weeks back. But PBA leaders say they’re not behind this poll.

Frankel couldn’t immediately be reached this morning.

For Frankel to run for a third term in March, voters would have to change the city charter. The most likely scenario for doing that would be through a referendum on the November ballot. To get a question on the ballot, the county Elections Office says it would need language by mid-August.

For that to happen, a petition drive to force a ballot question would have to begin soon.

Stay tuned.

A telephone poll conducted by the Police Benevolent Association this week asks respondents about declared 2011 West Palm Beach mayoral candidates Jeri Muoio and Molly Douglas and undeclared-but-considering-it candidate Kimberly Mitchell.

There’s also a favorable/unfavorable question about former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who’s name has been floated as a potential mayoral candidate.

But the survey questions that have tongues wagging concern term-limited state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, a former city commissioner who’s running for Palm Beach County commission this year and says she’s not interested in a mayoral campaign.

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Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned in a 2006 Internet sex scandal that helped bring down the GOP majority in Congress, is on the host committee for a Palm Beach fund-raiser next week for Republican state Senate hopeful Sharon Merchant.

Foley has been raising his public profile — a weekly local radio show, a recent Forum Club lunch appearance, last week’s Radio and TV Correspondents dinner in Washington — but this is the first time a political candidate has publicized Foley’s support to try to raise campaign cash. Merchant is running in a GOP primary against former Wellington councilwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto.

Read about it in this week’s Politics column.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley continues to elevate his public profile.

Last week, he made his first appearance at a Forum Club of the Palm Beaches luncheon since his 2006 resignation in a national firestorm over sexually charged Internet messages he sent to former congressional pages.

This week, Foley is planning to attend Wednesday night’s 66th annual Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner as a guest of Talk Radio News. It’s Foley’s first Washington appearance since his resignation, according to Foley publicist Jamie Holmes.

Foley On Politics airs Tuesdays at 6 p.m. on Seaview Radio 95.9 FM and 960 AM and at www.seaviewam960.com

Although Democrat Eric Massa has resigned from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations, Republicans want a continued ethics inquiry into the Empire State tickler and how much Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders knew about his conduct.

Sound familiar?

As this Washington Post article notes, “GOP leaders cited as precedent the committee’s 2006 decision to investigate claims that Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, sent sexually explicit messages to former male pages. The committee’s decision came after Foley stepped down from Congress. That inquiry also examined how some House leaders ignored claims about Foley’s conduct while others tried to shield his behavior from public disclosure.”

The House voted 402-1 today to keep the Massa investigation open.

WEST PALM BEACH — Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former GOP activist and bond underwriter Kevin McCarty are making their first post-scandal Forum Club appearances at today’s sold-out luncheon speech by Mitt Romney.

Foley, once a Forum Club regular, hasn’t been back since he resigned in a 2006 Internet sex scandal.

“People have been begging me to come back to the Forum Club,” Foley said as he worked the Kravis Center ballroom before the lunch.

McCarty was released in January after serving eight months in federal prison for failing to report wife Mary McCarty’s honest services fraud as a Palm Beach County commissioner. She’s serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence. Kevin McCarty declined to comment.

There’s a spirited debate on the Internet over whether Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was drunk when he turned in this rambling performance during the recent health care reform debate. Baucus was also in the news recently after it was revealed he had nominated his live-in girlfriend and former staffer for a U.S. attorney’s position in Montana.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who resigned in a 2006 scandal over sexually charged Internet messages to former congressional pages, links to the Baucus video on his Facebook page and says: “This is the senator that hired his staffer and then took her on trips…and divorced his wife….and they had me run out of town.”

If he ever decides to reenter politics, departing U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, has $977,616 in left-over money in his campaign account, according to a report filed Thursday night.

Wexler announced this week he’s resigning in the middle of his seventh term to head a Middle East-focused nonprofit. A special election will fill his seat.

Wexler chief of staff and consultant Eric Johnson said his boss hasn’t decided what to do with the money, but is likely to keep a chunk of it in an open campaign account.

While state campaign accounts must be liquidated within 90 days of the end of a campaign, there’s no such requirement for federal accounts. Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, for instance, still has nearly $1.2 million in his campaign account more than three years after he resigned. Candidates are not allowed to divert campaign money for personal use.

Javier Manjarres, the head of the Fort Lauderdale-based Conservative Republican Alliance, sent out word this morning that former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley “is still popular and loved by many of his friends and supporters in his former Congressional District as well as throughout Palm Beach.”

Case in point– last Tuesday, following a fundraiser at the West Palm Beach hot spot Pistache, talk show heavyweight and lovable little fuzz-ball himself Rush ‘El Rushbo” Limbaugh identified Mark sitting down at a table, walked up to him and bellowed out, “Mark Foley, how the hell are ya!,” before embracing Foley in warm bear hug.

Manjarres, one of the most vocal supporters of former House Speaker Marco Rubio’s primary campaign against Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, also notes that after reading the “investigator’s notes” about the scandal that forced Foley from office, “there was never any evidence that a crime was committed.”

He calls Foley’s new radio program, “Inside the Mind of Mark Foley,” a “must listen event.” Foley’s first show airs Tuesday at 6 p.m. on 960AM in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. It can also be heard on the Web at www.seaviewam960.com.

Manjarres also e-mailed the transcript of his interview with the Fort Pierce Republican. Read it after the jump.

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Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley was scheduled to tape the first broadcast of a new radio show he’s launching from Palm Beach County. “Inside the Mind of Mark Foley” was billed by the station as a program that “will expose the inner workings of Washington D.C.” It will air for the first time on Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. on WSVU 960 AM.

“During these incredibly changing times, it’s important that we hear the voice of a true Washington D.C. insider,” WSVU GM Chet Tart said in a press release.

WSVU, owned by North Palm Beach Broadcasting, can be heard from Boca Raton to Port St. Lucie. It includes several CBS programs, including “Imus in the Morning.” It also broadcasts Boston Red Sox and Dallas Cowboys games.

The press release from the station mentions that Foley is a former member of the House Ways & Means Committee, but fails to mention his embarrassing exit from the House which was sparked by inappropriate e-mails sent to underage congressional pages.

Foley was recently spotted at U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings’ town hall meeting and has maintained a Facebook page filled with political observations, according to Page2live.com.

Kirk Fordham, who gained national notoriety as a former chief of staff to Mark Foley, has been picked to be chief executive officer for the Everglades Foundation.

Fordham wasn’t serving in Foley’s office when the page scandal ended Foley’s political career in 2006, but he helped engineer Foley’s exit from Congress and testified before the House Ethics Committee investigating how top congressional leaders mishandled the situation.

But Fordham has a long history of working in the political and legislative arenas. He has been a chief of staff to three congressmen and spearheaded Sen. Mel Martinez’s fundraising efforts during the 2004 campaign.

The Everglades Foundation put out a news release offering bipartisan praise for Fordham’s abilities. Here’s what some key politicos said:

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The Mark Foley scandal is already joke fodder on the Washington banquet scene.

Last night, at a dinner roasting former CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer to raise money for the Spina Bifida Association, master of ceremonies Mark Shields began the evening with this question: “Do you know how they separate the men from the boys on Capitol Hill? The answer is, they don’t.”

Shields said that until the scandal broke, Foley “had been cruising” for the election.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan joked that he was glad to be a roaster “even if I was a last minute replacement for a former congressman from Florida.”

Foley wasn’t the only politician targeted for jokes. Don Imus told Schieffer that if he couldn’t find his car keys he could “get a ride with Patrick Kennedy.” When the crowd groaned, Imus quipped that “it could have been worse,” an unspoken reference to Patrick’s father, Ted Kennedy.

Then, turning his attention to George Allen’s troubles, Imus said “Mel Gibson has called Sen. Allen and said he wants his campaign donation back.”

Katherine Harris says the media would be “quite disingenuous” to blame the Mark Foley case on Republicans.

In an interview with WESH Channel 2 in Orlando, Harris said, “if anything, the Republicans didn’t know about these issues and we’re going to be very anxious to find out who in the media and on the other side of the aisle (Democrats) knew about it and kept this from the public interest, because our children were at stake.”

Harris did not mention that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner, Republican National Congressional Committee Chairman John Shimkus, and Rep. Rodney Alexander — all Republicans — knew about Foley’s contact with a former 16-year-old page nearly a year ago.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, a self-proclaimed taxpayer watchdog group, has released its annual ratings of how well members of Congress did in voting against what it deems “wasteful programs and pork-barrel spending.”

Not surprisingly, the list of issues chosen by the group favors Republicans over Democrats.

Among the Florida delegation,

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Sen. Mel Martinez has been chosen for a “Best and Brightest Award” from the American Conservative Union for his votes on 25 issues in 2005 selected by the conservative lobbying organization. Martinez and Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, were the only Florida delegation members to score 100 percent.

Rep. Katherine Harris came in with a 92 percent rating. She parted ways with the union on two issues. One was an amendment that would have lifted the ban on natural gas drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf; Harris voted against lifting the ban, the union wanted it lifted. The other was to set higher vehicle mileage standards. Harris supported the effort; the union opposed it. House members and senators were not rated on the same items because some were only considered in one chamber or the other.

Sen. Bill Nelson scored a 20, which was a substantial shift to the right from his score of 4 for 2004. Among other local lawmakers: E. Clay Shaw Jr., scored 71; Mark Foley scored 63; Alcee Hastings scored 4 and Robert Wexler scored zero.