Pat Dollard

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Politico:

Senate Republicans are starting to send a message to their increasingly isolated House counterparts: It’s time to abandon the hard line or face a public backlash.

Whether it’s the top two Senate leaders’ plan to avert a debt crisis or the recently resurrected Gang of Six framework, most senators have shown interest in the kind of bipartisan compromise that provides political cover to all involved. But House Republicans leaped further to the right this week, endorsing a Cut, Cap and Balance bill that attracted just five Democratic votes. Some are clamoring for a vote on a balanced-budget amendment that’s a nonstarter in the Democratic-controlled Senate — and could prove an embarrassing failure on the House floor.

House Republican insiders acknowledge that passage of a bipartisan Senate plan would put enormous pressure on them to follow suit or get blamed for any ensuing economic calamity. But most House Republicans aren’t ready to move off their mark, forcing House GOP leaders to begin to seriously contemplate a short-term solution to the impending default on the nation’s debt.

“I understand what they’re trying to do. I believe that they’re convinced that they’re carrying out the mandate [of the 2010 election],” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “The polling data indicates Americans don’t want the government shut down. … I hope [House Republicans] would be instructed by what happened in 1995.”

The subtle warning from McCain — a reference to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s fateful showdown with President Bill Clinton 16 years ago — speaks to the larger political and policy calculation that’s pitting establishment lawmakers in the Senate against conservative newcomers in the House. Most senators are anxious to see the debt limit increased before Aug. 2 to avert an economic catastrophe — and, short of that, they would at least like to avoid the brunt of the blame if the nation defaults on its obligations and a financial calamity is triggered. But many House conservatives aren’t making a similar calculation, rejecting the warnings of powerful institutions from the Treasury to the White House in a similar show of defiance that carried them to Washington.

The best place to stand to dodge partisan recrimination is on ground also occupied by the other side.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) hinted at the political needs of colleagues who are rallying around the Gang of Six proposal he helped write, even as he framed their newfound interest in the long-cooking plan as the right thing for the country.

“They want to be for something,” Warner said. “They want to be for something that’s bipartisan and bold and comprehensive.”

House leaders, looking for their own safe ground before the deadline, are now floating a short-term debt-limit increase among the options available to lawmakers. In remarks to reporters Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney pointedly declined to rule out a patch to keep the government out of default while a long-term solution is sought.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told President Barack Obama last week that he might be willing to consider that approach, which prompted a testy exchange between the two leaders. Obama has said in private meetings with congressional leaders that he wouldn’t sign a short-term deal — but that leaves room for him to allow one to become law without his signature.

It’s not clear yet where rank-and-file lawmakers in the House and Senate would fall if pushed on a short-term deal, though there would surely be some resistance in both chambers and in both parties. Later this week, Senate Republicans will support the Cut, Cap and Balance plan passed by the House, but they are also signaling that they are ready to move toward something that can attract significant Democratic support and Obama’s approval.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been warning his troops that a default could “destroy” the Republican brand and ultimately lead to a second term for Obama.

Earlier this year, Senate Republicans mostly marched in lock step with their House counterparts, but lately they’ve been following their own beat — a change that leaves the House GOP isolated.

Close friends of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) say they sympathize with the difficulty he faces pleasing his rank-and-file members and working to strike a deal.

“I think John is in a very tough position,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a frequent dinner companion of Boehner’s and co-author of the Gang of Six plan. “Politics being what it is today and people staking out positions like they’ve staked out — it’s making it very, very tough on all of us.”

The fractures among Republicans — mirrored by those among Democrats — aren’t all along the divide between the chambers. Each caucus has its own set of divisions.

Senate Republican divisions were laid bare at a closed-door lunch of the conservative Steering Committee on Wednesday, where lawmakers aired a wide range of views on how they should proceed after a Senate vote on the House’s Cut, Cap and Balance bill fails, attendees later said. No resolution was reached.

As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is closely monitoring the political ramifications of the debate. He insists that a default won’t occur, nor will there be tax increases as part of a final deal. But he sounded open to the Gang of Six proposal — as well as a fallback compromise plan if no broader deal can be reached.

Cornyn suggested fellow Republicans in the House may have to give a little.

“They have to pass something,” Cornyn told POLITICO. “I think if the Senate was able to pass something, it would create some momentum over there because our conservatives over here aren’t going to sign onto something that’s phony and all smoke and mirrors.”

He said he’s observed some softening in the House, noting in particular that some House conservatives who have opposed any debt-limit increase actually voted for one as part of the Cut, Cap and Balance bill. That measure would extend the limit by $2.4 trillion, conditioned on the improbable passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution through both chambers of Congress.

“For the first time, for many of them, they’re having to make a decision based on available options,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is also close to Boehner. “If you can lay something on the table that achieves significant savings, then you’ll find the 218 in the House you need to avert this.”

He added that “the most vocal ones are the first to fold.”

“At some point, you got a whole lot of people out there who will be hurt if we just lock up — if we can’t move anything,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.). “So my advice to [House Republicans] is to look at every plan very, very carefully.”

But even as their leaders negotiate with Obama and his aides, most House Republicans are still sticking to their guns, demanding an approach to narrowing annual deficits that cuts spending and does not raise taxes.

The most ardent supporters of a hard-line approach, including Arizona Senate candidate Jeff Flake, say that the lesson to be learned from 1995 is that Gingrich folded too early, not too late. They cite a passage in former White House aide George Stephanopoulos’s memoir of his time in the Clinton administration that indicates Clinton was ready to give in to Gingrich.

“Maybe … we didn’t hold out long enough,” Flake said.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said House passage of the Cut, Cap and Balance plan shows that the House has done more than the Senate.

“We ain’t holding the bag,” he said.

But Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said no one will escape culpability if Washington fails to safeguard the nation’s credit.

“I think we’re all behaving like a bunch of boneheads,” said McCaskill, who is up for reelection in 2012. “If anybody thinks they can escape blame in this scenario, they’re not paying attention.”