Original post is Rand Paul Eyes 2016 as Reaching Out on Immigration, Race by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, in Washington.

Senator Mark Warner places the odds for a bipartisan debt-reduction deal at better than 50-50, and has outlined plans to roll out fresh ideas in the coming weeks on where to find the revenue to finance it.

Warner, a first-term Democrat who has been a leading participant in several unsuccessful bipartisan efforts to forge agreement on slicing the federal debt through a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases, said at a Bloomberg Breakfast in Washington today that he is in a “period of optimism” about the chances of doing so now.

“This is eminently doable,” Warner said of a package that would cut $2 trillion from the long-term debt. Without offering specifics, Warner said he was looking at ways to raise the revenue that would be needed for such a proposal as an alternative to rewriting the tax code — which has been the  chief means of doing so in deficit negotiations thus far.

“I’m not ready to come fully clean yet,” said Warner, adding later that he was in the process of sharing his ideas with Republican lawmakers and think tanks to determine his  proposal’s prospects and when to unveil it.

“Are there other default mechanisms, if tax reform doesn’t get there, that could be broad-based, fair, progressive, and that might attract attention?” he said.

Warner, who co-founded a company that is now part of Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint Nextel Corp. and served as Virginia’s governor from 2002 to 2006, said lawmakers may be more inclined to strike a deal because “looking stupid at some point has got to motivate people.”

Still, he added, doing so would require both sides to save face in the stalemate, perhaps by embracing some fresh mechanisms for raising revenue that neither side has rejected in past negotiations.

“The validity of some good, new ideas in this debate are important, but equally important is just the idea of having some new ideas, so that people can get off their well-established positions,” he said.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat who has  also been involved in previous bipartisan debt talks, said earlier this week he thought the chances of a compromise were now less than 50 percent.

Warner criticized House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s fiscal blueprint, arguing that the Wisconsin Republican’s proposed cuts to education, infrastructure and research and development spending are misguided from a business perspective.

Republican presidential nominee and co-founder of the private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC Mitt Romney “would never invest in the Paul Ryan business plan for this country,” Warner said. “It is a bad business plan for America. There is no nation in the world that we’re competing against that has as bad a business plan as what he’s laid out.”

Original post is Warner: Budget Deal Better Than 50-50 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

TV video cameras at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference at the National Harbor.

If you’re looking for opponents of a broad immigration rewrite at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, you’ll have to do some sleuthing.

Foes who decry efforts to legalize the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants as “amnesty,” for so long the Republican Party’s defining voices on the issue, were banished from the agenda of the three-day gathering of activists. Even an unofficial panel featuring one of their most prominent thinkers failed to make it onto the glossy printed schedule distributed to attendees.

While it is listed on an online schedule of events for the Oxon Hill, Maryland, gathering, a panel entitled “Hot Issues: Electing Integrity, Immigration, and the Rule of Law,” featuring Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies — which rails against “amnesty” and calls for reducing both legal and illegal immigration — is nowhere to be found in the official brochure.

“Convenient, isn’t it?” Krikorian remarked in an e-mail.

Accidental or otherwise, the omission underscores the degree to which CPAC, where Republican activists are grappling this week with how to remake their party and retool their message after 2012 losses, is spotlighting a new stance on immigration. The group’s official panel on immigration yesterday featured five Republicans who back a path to legal status for undocumented workers, and no opponents — at least not on stage.

“If we are going to stop the tide of secular socialism, we need more allies,” declared Republican pollster Whit Ayres, adding that “a group of incredibly family-oriented, hardworking, church-going, entrepreneurial, spiritual people might be a good place to look for some more allies.”

“Legally!” came a voice from the audience.

In an interview, Krikorian said he doesn’t know whether his panel was omitted from the program because of “incompetence or conspiracy.” Yet he’s pretty sure CPAC’s organizers, including Chairman Al Cardenas and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, are using the event to press an “open borders” agenda.

“The elites are in favor of amnesty and unlimited immigration, and the rank-and-file are not,” Krikorian said. The lack of anti-immigration voices at CPAC “doesn’t tell us anything about conservative voters, but it does tell us about `Conservatives, Incorporated.’ ”

In an interview before the conference, Cardenas, a Miamian whose family immigrated from Cuba when he was a child, said he supports a path to legal residency for the undocumented. That’s what’s most likely to win support in the Republican-run House, he said, while acknowledging the Senate’s Democrats will want to see a path to full citizenship.

Still, not all speakers at the gathering hewed to the pro-immigration reform message. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who is moderating today’s hard-to-find panel, closed out yesterday’s afternoon session with a brief speech in which he said: “The massive, instant amnesty being pushed by Obama and some Republicans is unworkable, unjust, undermines the rule of law, and will harm the public safety.”

It was met with a smattering of applause, but by that time of the afternoon, most conference-goers had left the main hall, heading to their happy hours and dinners.

Original post is Immigration Reform Promoted at CPAC by Political Capital.

Photograph by Erik Campos/The State/AP Photo

A law enforcement official talks to unidentified people during a round up in Columbia, South Carolina in this file photo.

Updated at 2:05 PM EDT

South Carolina isn’t a border state, yet its radio and television airwaves will soon be saturated with advertisements by groups leading the charge both for and against a broad immigration overhaul taking shape in Congress.

The reason: The state is home to two Republican lawmakers who are playing central roles in the immigration effort, both of them preparing to face voters in the 2014 elections. Sen. Lindsey Graham is one of a bipartisan group of eight senators drafting immigration legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the United States.

And Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina chairs the House subcommittee that has jurisdiction over immigration legislation in his chamber, where another bipartisan group of lawmakers is working on a plan.

NumbersUSA, a leading opponent of a sweeping immigration rewrite, last month began airing radio spots against Graham throughout South Carolina, backed by a six-figure ad buy — Bloomberg was first to report this.

“Who elected Lindsey Graham to demand millions more immigrant workers when so many South Carolinians are jobless?” the ad asks.

A group of evangelical organizations that are pressing for a measure that legalizes undocumented immigrants announced today that they were launching a five-figure ad buy of their own that seeks to bolster Graham’s position.

“Christ calls us evangelicals to compassion and justice, so please join a growing movement of Christians asking our political leaders for immigration solutions rooted in Bible values,” Rev. Jim Goodroe, who hails from Gowdy’s district, says in the ad.

While neither Graham’s nor Gowdy’s name is mentioned, the group made it clear its object was in large part to insulate Graham from criticism for his role in the immigration effort, and persuade Gowdy that he wouldn’t pay a political price for backing it.

“It’s up to us to convince him that the majority of the members of his district support comprehensive immigration reform, and we believe they do,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Update:

A separate group of Republicans backing a broad immigration overhaul also announced today it was spending $60,000 to begin airing television ads in the state touting the economic benefits of immigration to South Carolina and praising Graham for leading the charge to revamp the system. Republicans for Immigration Reform, a super political action committee formed to back Republicans backing the legislative effort, is teaming with the Partnership for a New American Economy on the effort.

Jeremy Robbins, the partnership’s director, said the group was working to get business leaders to back lawmakers who would have to take tough votes to push through a broad immigration rewrite.

“Lindsey Graham for years has shown incredible courage to lead on this issue, at real potential cost to himself,” Robbins said.

Republicans for Immigration Reform Treasurer Charlie Spies said his group would go so far as to “step into primaries and defend” Republicans if they were being attacked for supporting the effort.

The partnership is co-chaired by New York Mayor City Michael Bloomberg, the majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News.

Original post is Immigration: All Roads, South Carolina by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Immigrants take the oath of citizenship at a special Valentine’s Day naturalization ceremony for married couples on Feb. 14, 2013 in Tampa, Florida.

As President Barack Obama presses Congress to produce legislation granting legal status to 11 million undocumented immigrants, Republican proponents have quietly begun laying the groundwork to persuade their own lawmakers and supporters to embrace the plan.

That effort goes public this weekend, when the Republican-aligned Hispanic Leadership Network will launch a TV ad featuring former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez making the case for an overhaul.

“America’s the only place where a little boy who couldn’t speak English can grow up to be a CEO and U.S. secretary of Commerce,” says the Cuban-born Gutierrez, who served under former President George W. Bush. “Washington must pass immigration reform that grows the economy and respects the rule of law.”

The spot is to air nationally in English on ABC’s “This Week” and “Fox News Sunday” as well as in Spanish on the Spanish-language network Univision as part of a “six-figure” buy, the group said. The organization is an arm of the nonprofit American Action Network, which spent $11.7 million to influence congressional races last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election compared to 27 percent for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who referred to proposals to legalize undocumented immigrants  as “amnesty” and said his goal would be to prompt them to “self-deport.” Since then, Obama has aggressively campaigned for an immigration law rewrite. Many Republicans have said their party must drop its longstanding opposition to such a bill.

“American Action Network recognized years ago that conservatives have had an uphill battle in the Hispanic community,” Communications Director Dan Conston said. “As this immigration debate moves forward, we are looking to play a positive role in both supporting reform and in supporting the people that are making a positive contribution.”

The ad is only one part of the campaign. The Hispanic Leadership Network distributed talking points to Republican lawmakers earlier this year about how to talk about immigration reform and has been working to educate them about the benefits of an overhaul.

In the coming weeks, its think tank the American Action Forum plans to produce a study authored by its president Douglas Holtz-Eakin on the economic benefits of an immigration rewrite. Hotlz-Eakin is a former Congressional Budget Office director and Republican economic advisor.

“We think we can play a positive role in helping educate conservatives on the benefits,” said Conston.

Original post is Republican-Leaning Group On Immigration Revamp: It’s the Economy by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Dominican immigrants pose for photos after becoming American citizens at a special Valentine’s Day naturalization ceremony for married couples on Feb. 14, 2013 in Tampa, Florida.

There’s a lot of optimism and happy talk from President Barack Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill these days about the prospects of pushing through a bipartisan immigration rewrite this year. Yet among those tasked with hashing out such a compromise, there’s also a hefty dose of realism about the difficulty of that job.

Staffers grinding away on the plan made a private plea today to Latino elected officials not to abandon the legislation once it’s unveiled, warning them that it would be a compromise that wouldn’t fully please either side. It’s an acknowledgement that, even as momentum gathers behind an immigration revamp, the challenges that have undermined past efforts remain.

It would take “Armageddon” to derail the effort this time, Enrique Gonzalez III, immigration counsel to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told a group of Latino elected officials at a private briefing today, according to two people present.

Still Gonzalez, who Rubio recently brought on board to spearhead his immigration efforts, also warned that the measure won’t be perfect and exhorted those present to get behind it anyway, according to attendees, or risk seeing it collapse as a similar effort did in 2007.

The comments came at a luncheon sponsored by the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and the people described them on condition of anonymity since it was declared “off the record.”

The session also featured an aide to another of the Senate’s bipartisan gang of eight on immigration, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, as well as to two staffers to House members working on a parallel effort, Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California and Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida. All were bullish about their chances of reaching an agreement, and the Republicans described a sea change among lawmakers in their party they said gave them hope.

Indeed, Republicans have moved off their opposition to allowing a path to legal status for the 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S., after their party’s 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney drew only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote compared witho Obama’s 71 percent. Yet some prominent lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, are still against allowing them to eventually gain citizenship — a central demand of Obama, congressional Democrats and advocacy groups.

Insiders are already warning that longtime proponents of an immigration overhaul may not get everything they want. Attendees said Menendez’s chief counsel, Kerri Sherlock Talbot, asked Latinos at today’s briefing to remain united behind the legislation even though it would be a “centrist bill” and a compromise, knowing it would be “the best we can do.”

Original post is Immigration Authors: Optimism, Caution by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Tagg Romney gives an interview during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Florida.

Updated at 5: 15 pm EST

Tagg Romney, the eldest son of defeated 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, isn’t ready to join the family political dynasty. At least not yet.

A story in today’s Boston Herald reported that  the younger Romney, 42, was considering running in the Massachusetts special election to replace John Kerry, who gave up his U.S. Senate seat to become secretary of state. The report was nothing more than media speculation, a person familiar with Romney’s thinking told Bloomberg News.

Romney  proved the point with an e-mailed statement late this afternoon:

“I have been humbled by the outreach I received this weekend encouraging me to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate. I love my home state and admit it would be an honor to represent the citizens of our great Commonwealth. However, I am currently committed to my business and to spending as much time as I can with my wife and children. The timing is not right for me, but I am hopeful that the people of Massachusetts will select someone of integrity, vision, and compassion as our next U.S. senator.”

Romney was a frequent surrogate and top strategist on his father’s president campaign. Romney founded and runs Solamere, a Boston-based venture capital firm, and is the father of six children — the youngest of whom are infant twins.

Add to that his father’s less-than-stellar performance last year in the heavily Democratic state of Massachusetts — Mitt Romney lost the state he governed from 2003 to 2007 by 23 percentage points in the 2012 race for the White House — and a Tagg Romney candidacy would seem like an even longer shot.

Annie Linskey contributed reporting. 

Original post is Will He or Won’t He? Tagg Romney Says No to Senate by Political Capital.

Mitch McConnell never set out to be President Barack Obama’s go-to negotiating partner.

Yet the top Senate Republican cemented his role as the bridge between the Democratic president and an estranged Congress when he struck a New Year’s Eve agreement that averted most of more than $600 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts. That compromise marked the third time McConnell, 70, stepped in to end an exercise of political brinkmanship over fiscal issues.

“The Obama administration has been slow to recognize it, but even though they have a majority in the Senate, and even though it’s a Democratic presidency, they’re not going to get anything done unless the minority leader agrees with it,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican and McConnell ally. “He is the grown-up, and he is the one they need to have an agreement with if they want to get a result.”

Although House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican majority control the U.S. House, McConnell, who leads the minority in the Senate, is emerging as the party’s most powerful leader in Washington by virtue of his ability to manage his own members while dealing with Democrats. As debates unfold next month over raising the government’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling and in March over funding the government, the soft-spoken, bespectacled senator will be one of the most pivotal players in an era when partisan stalemate is the norm.

McConnell’s success in working with the Obama administration is presenting the fifth-term Kentucky senator with a dilemma: how to maintain his increasingly influential position without further antagonizing anti-tax Tea Party groups back home that are threatening to recruit a primary challenger for his re-election race next year.

“I just want to get the problems fixed, and to do that, we have to talk to the other side,” McConnell said in a Jan. 9 interview in his Capitol office.

See the full story on Obama and McConnell at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Obama’s Path to Congress Passes Through Republican McConnell by Political Capital.

Photograph by David James/20th Century Fox Film Corp/Everett Collection

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, center, in the film "Lincoln."

Kevin McCarthy is big on the big screen.

Last year, during the debt debate on Capitol Hill, the Republican congressman from California and House majority whip showed his troops a clip from the film “The Town,” the Ben Affleck-directed film about a career thief planning his next heist — appropriate for the deficit talks?

He also organized a caucus screening of “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt’s portrayal of a market-minded baseball manager.

This week, McCarthy is taking fellow Republicans to see “Lincoln,” the film portrayal of the party’s most honored president, played by Daniel Day Lewis.

“We do movie nights from time to time,” McCarthy explained today outside an official meeting of the Republican conference in the Capitol. The viewing will take place at an undisclosed location, for security reasons.

Lincoln, whose memorial on the National Mall stands as the grandest reminder of a nation held together amid unspeakable bloodshed, and freedom for the enslaved, often plays an inspirational role in modern-day Washington.

And this film may hold special significance for lawmakers as they brace for weeks of high-stakes negotiating during a post-election session on averting the fiscal cliff. It focuses on Lincoln’s successful efforts in 1865 to horse-trade and cajole members of Congress — some of them so-called “lame ducks,” having just lost their re-election bids — into supporting the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery.

President Barack Obama looked to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, “Team of Rivals,” for inspiration in Lincoln’s assemblage of advisers of clashing persuasions.

Follow the subtitle of that book: “The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.”

Perhaps McCarthy’s caucus will take away some of that from the show.

Brian Faler, Kate Hunter and Mark Silva contributed to this review. 

Original post is Republicans Rallying for `Lincoln’ — Majority Whip’s `Movie-Night’ Out by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images

Paul Ryan speaks during campaign rally on October 4, 2012 in Fishersville, Virginia.

On his way to Kentucky for a debate that could influence the outcome of a tightening race for the White House, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan sported a faint tan and big smiles today as he stopped for ice cream.

Ordering two generous scoops of moose tracks at the Old Farmer’s Creamery in St. Petersburg, Florida, the House Budget Committee chairman from Wisconsin said he was “excited” to take on Vice President Joe Biden and give voters a “clear choice” in the race.

“No butterflies?” reporters wanted to know.

“Look, Joe Biden’s been on this stage many times before. It’s my first time, so sure, it’s a nervous situation,” Ryan said. Calling the vice president “one of the most experienced debaters we have in modern politics,” Ryan added that his rival’s “Achilles Heel” is President Barack Obama’s record.

It wasn’t the time for discussing the specifics of policy, Ryan said, brushing aside a question about presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s comment yesterday to the Des Moines Register editorial board that legislation restricting abortion wasn’t part of his agenda. Ryan has backed such measures during his years in Congress.

“Our position’s unified, our position’s consistent and hasn’t changed,” Ryan said. Asked what it is, Ryan responded: “I’m sure you’ll find out at these debates.”

The 42-year-old has been spending most of his time lately reading briefing binders to prepare for the debate, and sparring opposite former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who is standing in for Biden in mock debates. Still the congressman — famously a devotee of the P90X and Insanity exercise regimens — said he managed to work some outdoors time into his debate preparations.

He went mountain-biking while cramming for the debate in Wintergreen, the central-Virginia resort where he spent much of last week. And in between rehearsals in St. Petersburg, he told a local reporter, “I finally got some sun and got outside.”

“You know in this life, I haven’t gotten a chance to spend much time outdoors,” Ryan said in an apparent reference to life on the presidential campaign trail. “I got a chance just to do some reading outside, which was very relaxing.”

Original post is Ryan’s `Butterflies’ Raise Biden’s Bar by Political Capital.