Campaign advertising makes strange bedfellows Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) doesn't support Ellen DeGeneres's same-sex marriage, but his campaign was more than eager to appeal to her fans. Her daytime talk show aired more than 11,000 Senate-focused campaign ads during the 2014 midterm elections, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. And almost half came from Republican candidates and groups. Here's the obvious strategy: About three-quarters of daytime talk-show viewers are women, according to a Pew Research report from 2012. And Republicans this year were determined to shift more female voters to their column. So DeGeneres's audience was a prime target. ABC's "Modern Family," a show that celebrates the nontraditional family, is another unlikely favorite for Republicans. But you may recall that in 2012, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said his "guilty pleasure" was watching the show with his wife. It's also a favorite sitcom of the Obamas. Some of the Senate's most conservative candidates this year, such as Tom Cotton in Arkansas and Joni Ernst in Iowa, spent campaign cash to advertise during "Modern Family." In the spring, the show's gay couple wed in the season finale. "The show has never been political," co-creator Christopher Lloyd told the Hollywood Reporter. "But our hope is that people who are a tiny bit squeamish about a gay wedding might find themselves getting caught up in the show, thinking, "That, in a strange way, invokes emotions in me that I wasn't expecting." " Republicans aren't the only ones whose advertising decisions seemed to clash with their message. According to the CPI analysis, which used data from tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG, Democratic campaigns and committees ran ads on Fox News while simultaneously fundraising off of the news channel's conservative tilt. A Nixon party (and a quiz!) The 40th annual Nixon Alumni Luncheon at the Metropolitan Club on Thursday featured a speech by Richard Nixon's secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who talked about Nixon's foreign policy vs. President Obama's. Also speaking at the event were former vice president Dick Cheney and conservative pundit Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, who was a Nixon speechwriter, hosted more than 100 guests for dinner at his home Wednesday night. Fifty or so alums attended the luncheon, including Nixon's personal aide and gatekeeper, Steve Bull; domestic policy aide Steve Hess; congressional affairs aide Bill Timmons; speechwriter Ken Khachigian; and National Security Council aide Bud McFarlane. And now, a Loop Quiz: Name four Nixon White House aides who went on to serve in the U.S. Senate. Answers at bottom of column - don't cheat! So more like an Ebola serf? What, exactly, does an ebola czar do? Well, one thing he doesn't do is testify in Congress, our colleague Joel Achenbach tells us. Ron Klain, appointed ebola czar by President Obama last month, during a particularly rocky period when Ebola seemed to be spreading in the United States, was conspicuously missing from the lineup of administration officials in the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Ebola on Wednesday. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Miss.), trying to find out about the contours of Klain's job, opened his questions by asking the witnesses, "How many times have you met with Mr. Klain since his appointment, and what has he brought to the table, the effort, that was missing?" Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said she speaks to Klain in person or by phone or e-mail every day. Other administration officials chimed in and described him as a necessary policy coordinator. Then the committee chairman, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), revealed that she had asked for Klain to join the panel but was blocked by the White House. "I reached out to Mr. Klain," she said, but the White House "declined his participation, saying he had no operational role." The White House said "he is a coordinator and an employee of the White House. They felt that the people who had the real responsibility for doing the actual governance of response" should be on the panel. Mikulski, noting that administrations back to Ronald Reagan's have followed a similar policy, indicated she was okay with that: "I think that by all accounts this is a pretty solid group." It included Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom. So Klain just coordinates stuff. The other folks actually do stuff. Hey, not such a bad gig. Just a little second-guessing President George W. Bush, despite a low profile since leaving office, is doing the book-tour circuit, giving media interviews to talk, mostly, about his father's legacy. But with Iraq now in turmoil, Bush II can't avoid being asked to justify a war that many believe was fought under false pretenses. Appearing Wednesday morning on NPR, Bush faced questions from reporter David Greene, who asked whether the country is safer now than when Saddam Hussein was in power. Bush said the late dictator "had the capacity to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Bush then threw President Obama under the bus for pulling troops out of Iraq, noting that "in 2009 and 2010, the violence in Iraq was settling down. But when Greene asked about Obama's decision-making, Bush said, "Well, one of the things I'm not going to do is second-guess our president." Answers to the quiz Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who was a congressional liaison aide to the legendary Bryce Harlow. The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), who ran the urban affairs office. (Steve Hess has a book coming in December, "The Professor and the President," about Moynihan and Nixon. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who was a young aide to Moynihan. Liddy Hanford, an aide in the consumer affairs office who's now better known as former senator Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.).