• GOP embraces cosmetic makeover, tweaking tone not principles

    Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

    U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, addresses the media following a Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. From left are: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-VA, Conference Vice Chairman Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-KS, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, Rep. Susan Brooks, R-IN, Conference Chairman Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, and Rep. Tom Price, R-GA.

    By Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News

     

    Published at 4:35 a.m. ET: After their electoral drubbing last November — their second straight in a presidential contest — Republicans have faced a choice. Do they change their policies or their tone?

    For now, many top Republicans in Washington seem to have opted for the latter, deciding that a more articulate re-statement of the party's long-held principles will suffice in their effort to attract new voters to the GOP.

    "I wouldn't say shift in policy," pollster Jim McLaughlin said of his advice for fellow Republicans. "Republicans have to make adjustments there, but they have to stick to their principles."

    McLaughlin's words echo what many Republicans have argued since the election: It's not the party's long-held principles that are the problem, but rather, the way the party's leaders articulate those principles to voters.

    House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., offered a perfect example of current Republican thinking when he delivered a major policy speech that rehashed a number of familiar policies on education, immigration and entitlements under his new "make life work" veneer.

    The No. 2 Republican in the House re-framed some of his party's most familiar proposals as an agenda intended to ease the plight of most American families. (The lone new pronouncement was Cantor's endorsement of the thrust of the DREAM Act, a proposal to allow undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children a pathway to citizenship.)

    He disputed the notion that his speech was part of a broader effort to soften the GOP's image: "The average American is not thinking about and wondering about where the Republican Party is," Cantor told one questioner.

    But the Virginia congressman's speech is representative of an emerging consensus that a more modern restatement of their long-held principles will suffice in seeking to broaden the party's appeal.

    And indeed, President Barack Obama's agenda seems poised to stress-test some of the Republican Party's most bedrock policies.

    If Republicans can rebuff the president, it could prove the resiliency of their stances. A victory for the president, on the other hand, could tear through the GOP like a buzzsaw. The GOP is arguably facing the most direct challenge in decades to the tenets that have formed the foundation of Republican Party politics for the better part of three decades.

    Republican Eric Cantor calls for legal residence and citizenship for children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington conservative think tank.

    Public opinion shifting
    Republicans' decision to hew closely to those long-held principles is not without dissent, however.

    "People focus on the 2012 elections, but it's deeper than that," said former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican who leads the moderate "Main Street Partnership."

    "It can't just be tone," LaTourette argued. "Because just changing the tone is going to be like putting a lipstick on a pig — it pretties things up, but doesn't really change the fact that it's a pig."

    The next four years — the midterm elections in 2014 and the next presidential contest in 2016 — will offer a major test of which school of thought is right.

    Obama's second term agenda seems almost directly intended to challenge the GOP on taxes, entitlements, immigration, social issues and foreign policy.

    Terminally low taxes, hawkish foreign policy, largely unfettered gun rights and opposition to abortion and gay rights have defined the GOP since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And as recently as 2004, President George W. Bush's re-election seemed to signify a sweeping affirmation of these central principles.

    But Obama already won new revenue during the first installment of the "fiscal cliff" fight, and his forthcoming budget is almost sure to seek more tax increases. The president is demanding an immigration bill and the first major gun law since the 1990s. Obama has also consistently advocated for new gay rights, and public opinion has followed (however slowly). And last month's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of Americans support abortion rights — an issue which Democrats used against Republicans to great effect during the election — for the first time in history.

    On an even more foundational issue, last November's exit polls revealed a change in tide against Republicans' opposition to new taxes under any circumstances. Almost half of voters — and 70 percent of independents — agreed that income taxes should increase, at a bare minimum, for households earning more than $250,000 per year.

    For Republicans, the road map back to victory involves speaking less stridently about some of these issues, and emphasizing certain elements of the GOP platform over others. Virtually all Republicans recoil at the comments last fall about "legitimate rape" by Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, but no mainstream GOP leader has suggested that the party jettison its longstanding opposition to abortion rights. The new strategy might involve sidestepping conversations altogether about abortions in the instances of rape, instead emphasizing Republican policies that might support women's economic mobility.

    And already, a new effort led by former Bush political guru Karl Rove has vowed to combat candidates like Akin in primaries and help to nominate more electable Republican candidates. (A separate effort spearheaded by another onetime Bush adviser, Ed Gilliespie, and two Hispanic GOP governors, Suzana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada, will look to recruit more minority Republican candidates.)

    LaTourette, the former congressman, suggested the answer might be simpler. The GOP, he said, is should just get things — something, anything — done.

    "There needs to be some sort of reasonable approach to demonstrate that we're all in this together," he said, "a willingness to do the doable and get things done."

    Related:

    NBC/WSJ poll: Majority, for first time, want abortion to be legal

    Rape remarks sink two Republican Senate hopefuls

    Social conservatives say they deserve seat at table in retooled GOP

  • Lawmakers question timing of Petraeus resignation

    Officials say the FBI investigation into David Petraeus was triggered  by a complaint from a family friend into emails sent by his biographer Paula Broadwell. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    By Kristen Welker and Pete Williams, NBC News

    Updated at 12:17 a.m. ET: As more details about General David Petreaus’ alleged relationship with his biographer emerge, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed frustration, asking when the affair was discovered and who in Washington was told about it.

    “We received no advance notice; it was like a lightning bolt,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said on “Fox News Sunday.” Feinstein chairs the Intelligence Committee. “We should have been told. There is a way to do it.”

    Petraeus, who was appointed 14 months ago to head the Central Intelligence Agency, announced his resignation on Friday, citing an extramarital affair. Multiple government officials tell NBC News that he had a relationship with Paula Broadwell, 40, who wrote about the general’s education in her bestselling book, “All In.”



    Steven Boylan, who worked for the former CIA director, told NBC News that he had spoken with Petraeus over the weekend and that he said his relationship with Broadwell lasted nine or 10 months and ended four months ago.

    Of Petraeus’ wife, Holly, Boylan said that to suggest that she’s furious is an “understatement.”

    On CNN, Peter King, R-N.Y., chair of the Homeland Security committee said: “It seems this has been going on for several months, but now it appears that they’re saying the FBI didn’t realize until Election Day that General Petraeus was involved. It just doesn’t add up.”

    Officials tell NBC News that the affair was revealed because Broadwell sent anonymous, threatening emails to Jill Kelley, 37, described as a close friend of the Petraeus family. Kelley, who lives in the Tampa, Fla. area, was a volunteer social liaison to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

    Investigating who sent the emails to Kelley, the FBI discovered the connection between Petraeus and Broadwell, officials say.

    Petraeus was interviewed in late October, officials told NBC News. But it wasn’t until Thursday that he met with President Barack Obama, who accepted his resignation on Friday.

    The woman who complained of being harassed by Paula Broadwell, General David Petraeus' biographer, has been identified as Jill Kelley, 37, a senior official tells NBC News. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.

    Lawmakers question the timing not just because the news was delivered so soon after the elections, but because Petraeus was scheduled to testify Thursday about the attacks on the Benghazi, Libya consulate that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

    Those lawmakers argue that Petraeus is the key to receiving answers about the attacks.

    A senior law enforcement official tells NBC News that the investigation was “overseen carefully.”

    "The investigation had to take a certain path, step by step. Things needed to be explored, and there were sensitivities to observe,” the official said.

    House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., however, said that he was earlier told about the situation by an FBI employee.

    "I was contacted by an FBI employee concerned that sensitive, classified information may have been compromised and made certain (FBI Director Robert) Mueller was aware of these serious allegations and the potential risk to our national security,” Cantor said in a statement.

    “A senior law enforcement official says a call to a congressional staffer came from an agent who was initially involved in the investigation but who was later removed from the case because he knew an associate of one of the people being investigated.  The agent knew someone on the Hill and called that person, a Republican staffer, according to the official. But that phone call had no effect on either the course of the investigation, the involvement of FBI Director Robert Mueller -- who was following it closely long before Cantor called him -- or the decision to notify Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the official says.”

    Meanwhile, Boylan told NBC News in an interview on Saturday that he was “very surprised and shocked” at the news.

    "He's not perfect, he's made a mistake," Boylan said. “I don’t know if ‘let down’ would be right word … my first reaction was disbelief and then wondering if there wasn't somebody out there was spinning something to try to do some kind of harm 'cause that's happened in the past.”

    Petraeus: Battlefield 'hero' and savvy Washington insider

    Boylan said he interacted with Broadwell during the early stages of research for her book. He said he didn’t recall Petraeus ever commenting to him about Broadwell.

    “Based on my initial contact with her on email, telephone, she sounded driven, she seemed smart on the topic,” he said. “Anyone probably doing their dissertation knows the rigors of research and is going to have to be dedicated in that direction.”

    NBC News has been unable to reach Petraeus, Broadwell or Kelley for comment.

    "He's not perfect, he's made a mistake," said Steven Boylan, who worked for Gen. David Petraeus before the CIA director resigned following the discovery of his extramarital affair. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.

    Kristen Welker is NBC News’ White House correspondent. Pete Williams is NBC News' justice correspondent. This story includes reporting from NBC's Andrea Mitchell and The Associated Press.

     

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  • Obama, Romney teams project confidence amid tight poll numbers

    By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

     

    Surrogates for President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney projected outward confidence on Sunday in each candidate's ability to win on Election Day.

    As the final NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll showed a close race nationally between the two candidates, their top supporters squabbled over who held the upper hand in critical battleground states.

    "I'm very confident that, two days out from Election Day, the president's going to be re-elected on Tuesday night," said David Plouffe, a White House adviser who managed the president's 2008 campaign, on "Meet the Press."

    There are seven states, worth 89 electoral votes, considered true "toss-up" states on NBC News' battleground map: Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and New Hampshire. Other competitive states include Nevada, which has leaned slightly for Obama in recent polls, and North Carolina, which has tended toward Romney in many recent polls.

    "All these states right now, we think the president's in a good position to win," Plouffe said.

    Both Obama and Romney spent Saturday barnstorming these battleground states in hope of shoring up their base and shaking loose prized undecided voters in the final hours of the campaign. But their professed confidence belied a much more competitive battle for the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency, especially as an uncertain finale loomed over the 2012 campaign.

    The Romney campaign said its Sunday schedule — which took the former Massachusetts governor to Pennsylvania and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to Minnesota — both states which Republicans have only contested as of late — was a sign of surging national momentum. But Democrats castigated those trips as a sign of desperation, as Romney scrambled for new pathways to 270.

    One of the most hotly contested battleground states includes Virginia, which Obama has put into play in 2008 and again in 2012. It also has one of the earliest poll closing times in the nation on Tuesday, and could offer political observers an early indicator of the trend lines in the election.

    "We're going to win this state, and I think we're going to win it a lot bigger than people are predicting," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican who represents a Richmond-area district.

    He added: "I see here on the ground, there is a lot of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."

    But political bravado is a well-worn tradition for the closing days of the elections, and Plouffe was quick to seize upon Romney's plans to spend some of his final campaign stops in Virginia and Florida, two states he might not be able to afford losing come Tuesday night.

    "We think Gov. Romney's playing defense," the White House aide said of Virginia and Florida. "I'd rather be the president today than Gov. Romney in terms of those two states."

    Plouffe also characterized the Obama campaign's position in Iowa and Ohio — two footholds of the president's Midwestern "firewall" — as "commanding," though he cautioned the campaign must execute its get-out-the-vote efforts on Tuesday if it is to secure those states.

    Follow the final weekend of the campaign with NBC Politics: