The Note: Regrouping — Republicans Organize Against Obama Health Plans

By RICK KLEIN Who’s more likely to embrace reconciliation — Harry Reid or Jenny Sanford? How many cocktail receptions does it take to win back trust?  Who is most impacted by the New Haven firefighters’ ruling — Sonia Sotomayor, or President Obama’s next pick for the Supreme Court?  Is there a banner somewhere — anywhere — that will ever be unfurled again declaring a “mission accomplished” on Iraq? (Would it be a meaningful deadline if Dick Cheney wasn’t skeptical?)  Who wanted and needed this congressional break more — Democrats who are getting their legislation rolling, or Republicans who are trying to go a week without losing a 2012er? Breaks can be politically perilous periods — less predictable, less friendly to messaging drives, with more opportunities to get off course. It’s also a chance to regroup. The New Haven firefighters’ ruling does perhaps nothing to Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation chances; this wasn’t going to be much of a fight before, and it isn’t now, either. But if there’s an upside in not having a battle, the ruling allows the GOP to refocus its energies in advance of next month’s hearings. It’s back to judicial philosophy and temperament, and away from identity politics and Rush Limbaugh/Newt Gingrich-fueled name-calling. While we’re talking course corrections, the GOP is honing its health care message. From the memo going out to Republicans leaders nation-wide today, being sent by RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “While the president remains personally popular, Americans are, with each passing day, becoming increasingly alarmed by his policies,” Steele writes, citing internal polling, in a memo provided to The Note in advance of its wide circulation.  “Every Republican should stand up for health care reform that controls cost, preserves quality and provides the health care that Americans deserve. This means standing up against President Obama’s health care plan. The Obama administration is acting with extreme haste, hoping to push through their health care experiment as fast as they can.  Make no mistake — their timeline is based on what works for them politically, not on what will result in the best health care policy for Americans. The reckless speed with which they are attempting to jam through this experiment is a grave threat to America’s health care, and America’s health.” Steele’s memo continues: “Our playbook on this issue is simple and straightforward: Fight for health care reform while fighting against the elements of the Democrats’ plans that will adversely impact care and further bankrupt our country.” Coming Tuesday from Hill leadership: Senators Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., John McCain, R-Ariz., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, gather for an 11 am ET discussion on health care, at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. The message: Everyone agrees on the need for reform — though not on what reform should look like. This whole governing thing is getting complicated: “The higher the stakes, the tougher the challenge in finding consensus within what has become a diverse Democratic majority,” Shailagh Murray and Dan Balz report in The Washington Post. “At its core, Obama’s domestic agenda is a liberal wish list of health care for all, tough new environmental regulations and government solutions to crises ranging from failing schools to faltering auto companies. But as the party’s ranks expanded in 2006 and 2008, its center of gravity shifted to the middle. And the key to a durable majority, White House officials and party leaders agree, is adapting old policy goals to new political realities.” l The president works the edges — and the angles: “With Democrats deeply divided over health legislation, President Obama is trying to enlist the nation’s governors and his own army of grass-roots supporters in a bid to increase pressure on lawmakers without getting himself mired in the messy battle playing out on Capitol Hill,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports in The New York Times.  “While this outside-the-Beltway strategy lets Mr. Obama stay out of Democrats’ internal fights — for now at least — there are risks. If Mr. Obama waits too long to exert his presidential muscle to forge consensus on Capitol Hill, his moment of opportunity could pass. He could also lose control of the final outcome if lawmakers cut backroom deals he dislikes, for example, by deciding to pay for the expansion by taxing employee health benefits, a move that worries Mr. Obama’s political advisers because it could cause the president to break a campaign promise.” “The reversals, hints of concessions and politically dicey proposals on health care are piling up for President Barack Obama, whose appeal for bipartisan legislation carries risk with no guarantee of reward,” the AP’s David Espo writes. “The prospects for success in health care hinge on a few big issues, as well as dozens if not hundreds of smaller ones. Obama has shown flexibility on most, if not all of them.”  Too much deference to Congress? It’s the “Vince Lombardi attitude toward winning,”New York Times columnist David Brooks writes. “There are limits, of course, but leaders in Congress and in the administration seem open to nearly any idea so long as it will lead to passing legislation. On health care, the administration would like a strong public plan, but it is evidently open to a weak one. It is on record against taxing health benefits, but it is clearly willing to tax them. It will do what it takes to pass a bill.”  Brooks continues: “The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. And Congressional governance is a haven for special interest pleading and venal logrolling.” Is this laying the groundwork — or tilling ground the White House wants settled? (Who thinks Tom Daschle is really off the reservation?) “Obviously we want to do as much as we can to keep the commitments we’ve made to working Americans,” former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said of the health care tax exemption. But, he added, “There’s a limit to how much we can provide that assurance.”  From the Center for American Progress proposal: “The revenue options include a levy on companies that don’t provide health care coverage for their workers and the taxation of some of the premiums by companies that do provide,” USA Today’s Susan Page writes. “The plan was released as the health care debate enters a critical moment. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has signaled he plans to unveil the details of his bill this week, and the Senate health committee already has released a ‘draft of a draft’ of its legislation. Obama is ramping up his public role in pushing for an overhaul, including an on-line town hall forum Wednesday afternoon at a community college in suburban Virginia.”  On Sotomayor — the game would be different if the ruling had been 9-0. As it is, the reversal on the Ricci case “has provided critics of high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with some fresh ammunition,” the Los Angeles Times’ James Oliphant reports. “Sotomayor’s critics have contended that the way her panel disposed of the case — through a three-paragraph, unsigned opinion — was as bad as the decision itself.”  Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.: “This case will only raise more questions in the minds of the American people concerning Judge Sotomayor’s commitment to treat each individual fairly and not as a member of a group.” Refocusing — if not remaking — the politics: “The Supreme Court’s rejection of a decision against white firefighters endorsed by Judge Sonia Sotomayor gives Republicans a renewed chance to attack her speeches and writings but is not expected to imperil her confirmation to the high court,” Jerry Markon and Paul Kane report in The Washington Post.  “Republicans seized on the decision yesterday as evidence that Sotomayor may let her personal views influence her rulings, particularly in civil rights disputes,” Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr reports. “Democrats said the division on the court showed that Sotomayor’s position was within the mainstream of legal thought.”  Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.: “The results in this case won’t change things one whit.” “Sotomayor’s defenders quickly pointed out that the court’s four liberals did not agree” with the majority, per ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg, Arianne deVogue, and Dennis Powell. “However, those arguments were somewhat diminished, since it appears even the liberal justices would have sent the case back to the lower court and ordered a rethinking of its summary decision.”  Maybe it really was 9-0, but just didn’t look like it: “What’s more striking is that the court was unanimous in rejecting the Sotomayor panel’s specific holding,” National Journal’s Stuart Taylor writes. “Her holding was that New Haven’s decision to spurn the test results must be upheld based solely on the fact that highly disproportionate numbers of blacks had done badly on the exam and might file a ‘disparate-impact’ lawsuit — regardless of whether the exam was valid or the lawsuit could succeed.”  Watching the left flank: “President Barack Obama, under fire from the gay-rights community over slow action on its priorities, promised to deliver by the time he leaves office,” The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler writes. “The president gave no new details about how he would advance these issues, but he made passionate remarks saluting the pioneers of the gay-rights movement and expressed solidarity with those working for equal rights.”  “Welcome to your White House,” the president said. Is it enough? “Whether that rhetoric translates into any meaningful change soon, of course, remains to be seen,” Salon’s Mike Madden writes. “And while those who were at the reception seemed mollified, other critics were still blasting away. The Servicemen’s Legal Defense Network, which represents gay and lesbian troops, held a protest outside the White House over the weekend to urge faster action on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ . . . . Still, the message Obama was trying to convey — relax, I’m with you — seemed to sink in.”  (Today on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line”: Jarrett Barrios, incoming president of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, who was among the attendees at the White House reception. Live at noon ET, or watch “Top Line” any time HERE.) In Iraq — a milestone: “Fireworks lit up the night sky over Baghdad tonight as Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from the country’s cities, the first milestone in a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that calls for the departure of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011,” ABC’s Luis Martinez reports.  But also some caution: “As the United States shifts its attention from Iraq to Afghanistan and other issues of grave importance, none of us can be lulled into believing that Iraq is a ‘mission accomplished,’ ” Jawad Al Bolani, Iraq’s Interior minister, writes in a Washington Post op-ed. “That sense of security is simply false. June 30 is not an historical endpoint to be celebrated by political philosophers; it is the beginning of a highly uncertain chapter in Iraqi democracy and self-governance.”  Guess who’s skeptical: “One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks,” former Vice President Dick Cheney told the Washington Times’ “America’s Morning News” radio show.  “It was the Bush administration that signed this status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqis calling for this exact kind of drawdown,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz pointed out Tuesday, on “Good Morning America.” In South Carolina — Andre Bauer’s move: “The 40-year-old lieutenant governor acknowledged Monday he was discussing with state Republican leaders the possibility of not running for governor in 2010 — in exchange for taking over the governor’s mansion now,” The State’s Adam Beam reports. “Presumably, the deal would take some of the heat off Bauer, who has grown weary of what he says is a coordinated attack on his character and credibility.”  Why cut a deal like that? “Because somebody has to be the adult here,” Bauer said. And he brought up rumors that he’s gay: “One word, two letters. ‘No.’ Let’s go ahead and dispel that now.” Does this make staying in office . . . punishment? Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., in an open letter to friends and supporters: “Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign — as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have suggested otherwise — that for God to really work in my life I shouldn’t be getting off so lightly.”  Half of an intriguing foursome: “John Boehner is taking a day off from fundraising this week to hit the links with Tiger Woods,” The Hill’s Molly Hooper reports. “The House GOP leader, an avid golfer, is set to play alongside the top-ranked, popular golfer in the Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am portion of the AT&T National tournament at Congressional Country Club on Wednesday. . . . Tiger better watch out — Boehner may try to recruit the golf star to run for Congress as a Republican.”  Todd Purdum gets McCain campaign aides to dish on Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, in the upcoming Vanity Fair: “They can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be,” Purdum writes.
  Most watched number? “Gov. Sarah Palin’s political action committee sent out an e-mail today, soliciting contributions tomorrow. June 30 is deadline for reporting donations to the PAC from the first half of the year,” McClatchy’s Erika Bolstad reports. “This is the second big push for money from Team Palin this month — the governor’s friends and supporters recently held an online appeal to help her pay as much as $600,000 in legal bills.” 
The Kicker: “Is Andre Bauer gay? That is now the story. . . . We’re a long way from where we were a week ago.” — Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, R-S.C., trying to put a scandal involving the governor behind him. 
Today on “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s daily political Webcast: Democratic strategist Jarrett Barrios, incoming president of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; and GOP strategist Kevin Madden. Noon ET. Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:

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