Obama Charts His Own Course On Immigration

By MICHAEL FALCONE ( @michaelpfalcone )

NOTABLES

  • HAPPENING TONIGHT: At 8 p.m. Eastern, President Obama will announce a major executive action on immigration reform, ABC's JIM AVILA reports. "Our immigration system has been broken for decades - and every minute we fail to act, millions of people who live in the shadows but want to play by the rules and pay taxes have no way to live right by the law and contribute to our country, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest wrote yesterday on the White House website. "So tomorrow night, President Obama will address the nation to lay out the executive actions he's taking to fix our broken immigration system." The president will then travel to Del Sol High School in Las Vegas tomorrow "to discuss why he is using his executive authority now, and why Republicans in Congress must act to pass a long-term solution to immigration reform," according to Earnest. Obama invited 18 senior lawmakers to the White House for dinner last night to explain his immigration decision. http://abcn.ws/11imwJ5
  • POLLING NOTE: A majority - 52 percent - of Americans said they would like to see Obama act unilaterally on immigration in the absence of Congressional action, with 44 percent opposed, in an early September ABC News-Washington Post survey. But, according to ABC's DEVIN DWYER, when asked about plans to extend legal status and work permits to undocumented immigrants now living and working in the U.S., a majority were opposed - 50 percent saying they do not back the idea, up four percentage points from the year before.
  • OBAMA'S 6-YEAR EVOLUTION ON IMMIGRATION IN 60 SECONDS: It has been a long road to immigration reform - and quite a transition for President Obama. It all started during a 2008 town hall with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos. "I cannot guarantee that it is going to be in the first 100 days," Obama said. "But what I can guarantee is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that I'm promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible." Six years later, with President Obama set to deliver a prime time address to announce his executive action on immigration. ABC's SERENA MARSHALL and JORDYN PHELPS take a look at how he got here. http://abcn.ws/1qteZTI

THE ROUNDTABLE

ABC'S JEFF ZELENY: President Obama's executive order on immigration will stir a Washington firestorm like we haven't seen in a while, but Republican leaders are already trying to impose discipline in how they react. Some lawmakers like Sen. Ted Cruz suggest that presidential nominations should be blocked. Other Republicans believe the spending bill to keep the government running should be held up. But conversations with leading Republicans across the capital elicit one common theme: The GOP should take a stern, but measured approach. Sen. John Cornyn summed it up best when he told us: "We don't need to make this story about us. We need to keep this focused on the president." There will certainly be a legal challenge - Republicans are already looking for a compelling plaintiff to be the face of a lawsuit - but the only true weapon Congress yields is the power of the purse. The only question is whether Republicans try to exercise it now, which could threaten the spending bill to keep the government running after Dec. 11, or whether they follow through with that measured approach and decide not to fund certain appropriations bills next year.

ABC's SHUSHANNAH WALSHE: The first day of this year's annual Republican Governors Association conference was overshadowed by the president's pending executive action on immigration. But, there was one more issue-besides the victory lap after this year's big wins-on everyone's mind here at the posh Boca Raton Resort and Club: 2016. At least six attendees at the conference are mulling a bid for the top office. The RGA's outgoing chairman New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been very vocal that he is considering a run saying Wednesday that running the RGA was his "first priority over the last year," but now "I've got some decisions to make, I'm not shy as you know, I'll let you know." When asked if thinks the next GOP nominee should be a governor, he was clear: "I do because we are better at it than people who do not have the experience of running large enterprises." Considering the number of GOP governors at the conference this week, Christie and another possible 2016 contender Indiana Gov. Mike Pence were asked if they had made pacts to play nice in what will likely be a nasty intra-party brawl. "No, no pacts," Christie said, before dead panning. "I haven't seen Pence in the corner making any pacts with anybody, but I'll be watching." And Texas Gov. Rick Perry was asked when the 2016 race should begin. Perry said the "more legitimate question" is "when did it start." "I think the campaign has engaged," Perry said. "We are talking about issues here that are going to affect the presidential election in 2016."

ABC's RICK KLEIN: Without playing the who-started-it blame game, President Obama's executive order on immigration ends a long and complicated chapter in the Obama legacy - the one holding his bipartisan promise. Recall, of course, that this was the biggest priority of the president's second term - the one he hoped and trusted would finally provide the kind of Democratic and Republican cooperation that had frustrated the president over his first term. That's the news backdrop for former Sen. Jim Webb's announcement of a presidential exploratory committee. "Let's fix our country. Together," he said in his announcement video, in what seems like an early campaign tagline. There are few reasons to believe Webb can seriously challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. He doesn't fit the profile of someone who would even exploit her biggest political vulnerabilities, on the left. But Webb is hoping that this is a different kind of moment - that he can be more than this cycle's Jon Huntsman. The frustration is sure there, if Webb can be the one who taps into it.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

JOHN MCCAIN ON THE ONE ISSUE THAT MAY DECIDE THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE. Sen. John McCain told ABC's JEFF ZELENY, host of "The Fine Print," that it's "imperative" that the GOP demonstrate responsible governance in the majority as the party looks ahead to the presidential race in 2016. "I think that the 2016 election will largely be decided by whether Republicans in the majority know how to govern or not," McCain said during a recent interview on Capitol Hill. If we are just obstructionists and viewed that way by the American people then I don't think we will succeed." That's particularly important, McCain said, if Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee in 2016, as many expect she will. "One of the things is: We Republicans show we can govern, she is going to have a problem with following a very unpopular administration - I know what that's like," McCain joked, referring to his role following President George W. Bush as the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. WATCH: http://yhoo.it/1vskFyt

THE BUZZ

with ABC's KIRSTEN APPLETON

GOP GOVERNORS MOSTLY HOSTILE ON OBAMA IMMIGRATION EXECUTIVE ACTION. Potential Republican presidential candidates at the Republican Governors Association annual conference gave very different responses to the president's decision to announce major executive action on immigration reform, ABC's SHUSHANNAH WALSHE reports. At the gathering at the posh Boca Raton Resort and Club, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dodged, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatened, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal accused the president of throwing a "temper tantrum" and Ohio Gov. John Kasich sounded a more moderate tone. Christie, the RGA's outgoing chairman, refused to weigh in saying, "We will have to wait and see what he says and what he does and what the legal implications are." Christie, never known to be less than vocal or shy, was asked several times his thoughts on the president's decision and he refused each time saying, "I am not going to articulate the basis of a yet unknown candidacy." Other governors weren't shy and didn't hesitate to critique the president, with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal calling it "absolutely an overreach of power." http://abcn.ws/1ucK9JR

MEET THE FAILED KEYSTONE PIPELINE BILL'S BIGGEST WINNER, AND LOSER. Despite his sponsoring the House version of the Keystone a bill that died in the Senate Tuesday night, there is perhaps no bigger winner from the legislation's defeat than Louisiana GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. And there is likely no bigger loser than the state's Sen. Mary Landrieu, the Democrat who is on the defensive as she heads to a Dec. 6 runoff election against Cassidy. Cassidy's campaign was quick to seize on the bill's defeat, which came up shy of passing by just one vote, as an example of Landrieu's failed leadership. But even if the bill had passed, it was unclear how Landrieu, 58, would have translated a legislative victory into an electoral one. ABC's JORDYN PHELPS takes a look at the several major hurdles the embattled Democrats faces on the road to re-election. http://abcn.ws/1p1u4ek

'DEVASTATING' FAILURES LEAD SECRET SERVICE TO CONSIDER RAISING WHITE HOUSE FENCE. ABC's MIKE LEVINE reports the security failures that recently let a man with a small knife in his pocket jump the perimeter fence and make it "practically unencumbered" deep into the White House were "devastating," and now the U.S. Secret Service may make the fence taller, the new head of the agency said Wednesday in his first appearance before lawmakers at the helm. "Without question, the agency has been severely damaged in recent years by failures," dating back to the Cartagena, Colombia, prostitution scandal in 2012, Acting Director Joseph Clancy told a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. "The range of shortcomings" is "what hits the hardest," he said. http://abcn.ws/1ubSWLX

WATCH BARACK OBAMA AS DINING CRITIC. Before he was president and had his own kitchen staff with a dedicated pastry chef, Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois looking for a good bite to eat in his hometown of Chicago. He did his part to drum up business for Dixie's Kitchen and Bait Shop during a newly unearthed segment from a restaurant review program on local channel WTTW where he showed how to remain diplomatic while doling out culinary criticisms, ABC's MEGHAN KENEALLY reports. Obama's episode of the much-loved local show "Check Please!" never aired. http://abcn.ws/1vqBZUK

WHO'S TWEETING?

@JimWebbUSA: A message from Jim Webb http://webb2016.com/

@politicalwire: GOP leaders are warning their rank-and-file about talking about impeaching President Obama http://politicalwire.com/2014/11/20/gop-leaders-warn-about-talking-impeachment/ …

@jgm41: Here's what @GeorgeHWBush is thankful for this year #TIMEThanks http://wp.me/p5HMd-f5hk via @TIME

@MysteryPollster: HuffPollster: Buried lede? Partisanship now driving perceptions of healthcare *quality* http://huff.to/1ytfxYW

@CoryBooker: Yes, I do meditate. RT @iamhuman108 Do you meditate?