Top Republican immigration reform negotiator and potential 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio said Sunday that he has not considered the 'political calculus' of pushing legislation that will be a magnet for criticism from some within his own party. 

"I, quite frankly, have avoided making the political calculus on this issue," the Florida senator said during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. 

"What we have now isn't good for anybody," he added. "What we have in place today, the status quo, is horrible for America."

Seeking to assuage conservative concerns about the soon-to-be-unveiled immigration reform bill drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight, Rubio said the legislation, which would offer undocumented immigrants the opportunity to pursue legal status and eventually apply for a visa, does not "reward" those who broke the law.

"It doesn't reward or doesn't award them anything," he said. "But it does give them access to our legal immigration system through a process that will not encourage people to come here illegally in the future, and then through a process that isn't unfair for people that have done it the right way." 

Rubio, a conservative affiliated with the Tea Party and one of just three Latinos in the Senate, added that the bill will not allow undocumented immigrants to achieve citizenship faster than those waiting to come to the country legally. 

"If you're waiting to come legally to the United States now, no one who has done it the wrong way will get it before you.  In fact, it will be much cheaper, faster, easier and less bureaucratic if you're doing it the right way," he said. 

The interview with NBC's David Gregory was part of a weekend media blitz for Rubio, who appeared on all network Sunday shows as well as on Spanish-language programs to sell the immigration bill. The measure, which is expected to be unveiled on Tuesday, is sure to face fierce opposition from conservatives who oppose any legal status for undocumented immigrants.

While the full details of the path to citizenship have not been formally released by the Gang of Eight, reports have indicated that undocumented immigrants will be required to pay fines and back taxes and wait 10 years in a "probationary" status before becoming eligible to apply for a merit-based visa.

Asked if his shepherding of the immigration measure would help him in a potential matchup against a top Democrat like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, Rubio again demurred. 

"This is not about improving anyone's poll number numbers," he said. "This is very simple. I'm a Senator. I get paid not to just give speeches. I get paid to solve problems."

In the early jockeying for the 2016 presidential race, one of Sen. Marco Rubio’s, R-Fla., major selling points is that he brings diversity and can expand the party’s influence with Hispanic voters, especially after the shellacking the GOP took with the demographic group in 2012.

Unlike other Republicans, Hispanics view Rubio more positively than negatively -- 23 percent viewed him favorably while 12 percent viewed him negatively, according to an oversample of 300 Latinos in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll. Another 40 percent either did not know him or had no opinion.

Of course, elections are choices, and a potential major obstacle for Rubio in 2016 could be Hillary Clinton, if she decides to run. The former secretary of state, New York senator, and first lady of a popular former Democratic president, was the most popular politician among Hispanics in the poll.

Barack Obama is still very popular with the group -- he has a 62 percent job approval, for example, when Americans at large gave him just a 47 percent rating. And he has a sky-high 64 percent positive, 19 percent negative rating with Hispanics.

But Clinton is even more popular. She’s viewed positively by 65 percent of Hispanics with just 13 percent giving her a negative rating.

In the Sept. 2012 NBC/WSJ poll, Mitt Romney was also viewed positively by 23 percent of Hispanics, but he had a 53 percent negative rating. He wound up losing 71 percent of Hispanics, one of the fastest-growing groups in the country who made up 10 percent of the electorate in 2012.

That was the worst showing by a Republican presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996 -- and Hispanics were half the size of the electorate than they were last year.

Hispanics are largely undecided about Rubio, but he starts off positive, and there’s room to for him to grow.

“Senator Rubio has impressive name identification for a first-term U.S. Senator with roughly six out of ten Hispanic/Latinos who recognize his name and a solid 23% positive versus 12% negative rating,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democrat Peter D. Hart. “Among Hispanics 40-years-old and older, his positive/negative numbers improve to 32%/13%. Compellingly, he maintains a modest net positive even among Hispanic Democrats (18% positive/15% negative).”

Still, the conservative Florida senator who speaks Spanish fluently and is a son of Cuban immigrants, faces some obvious challenges.

Hispanics, though somewhat socially conservative, tend to be economically liberal, view the Republican Party negatively, and largely line up with Democrats on a range of issues, from guns to immigration.

On immigration, Rubio faces a tricky test in the next few months. He is helping to shepherd comprehensive legislation through Congress with a principal task of selling it to conservatives, especially when it comes to a path for citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally.

Many conservatives, especially in the House and in the grassroots rank and file, are staunchly opposed to a path for citizenship.

Four-in-five Hispanics, on the other hand, are in favor of one. So, as Rubio tries to make the sell to conservatives and get something through they can support, he’s also going to have to convince Latinos, who are closely watching the immigration debate, that what he pushes for will be strong enough.

It’s also not clear how Rubio’s Cuban heritage would play or if it would matter – 51 percent of Hispanics in the poll said they were of Mexican descent versus just 4 percent who said they had Cuban roots. Another 16 percent said their families hail from Central and South America, and 8 percent were from Puerto Rico.

By the way, former President George W. Bush’s time away from the spotlight has done him some good with Hispanics. But he is still overwhelmingly viewed negatively (44 percent negative versus 29 percent positive). But both numbers are improvements from 2008 at the tail end of his presidency. In September 2008, just 21 percent of Hispanics had a positive impression of him versus 68 percent, who had a negative one.

On the issues, Hispanics continue to be more in line with Democrats than Republicans -- 56 percent identified as Democrats and just 20 percent identified as Republicans.

On gun restrictions, Hispanics are more liberal than other Americans with 70 percent believing laws on guns sales should be stricter. Just 55 percent of all adults believed the same.

On the budget, about half of Hispanics -- 49 percent -- think the sequester will have no impact on them or their families, lower than the 58 percent of all Americans who said so.

More Hispanics -- 41 percent -- said they believe the sequester cuts will hurt the economy rather than help. But, interestingly, three-in-10 think the spending cuts are a good thing and would help the economy. That’s nearly double that of all adults who said the same -- 16 percent.

Some interesting demographic notes:

- 56 percent of Hispanics identified as Democrats and just 20 percent identified as Republicans.
- Yet, just 23 percent identify themselves as liberal and 38 percent identify as conservatives, which is similar to the split among all Americans – 25 percent liberal, 26 percent conservative.
- Of all Americans, 44 percent identified as Democrats, 35 percent as Republicans.
- 51 percent of Hispanics say they have at least some college education versus 72 percent of the rest of Americans.

The oversample of 300 Hispanics or Latinos was conducted as part of the larger NBC/WSJ poll from April 5-8. It has a margin of error is +/- 5.7%.

They both were elected in 2010 under the Tea Party banner after beating primary opponents favored by the Republican establishment. They’re both rising stars in the modern GOP, and, last weekend, they finished first and second place in a straw poll of conservatives’ pick of a presidential nominee for 2016.

And as they both maneuver to mount their own campaigns that year – or, at least, preserve the option of doing so – Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., must share the spotlight. Intentionally or not, they’re already jockeying to do so.

Both senators have carefully worked to build their national profiles following the 2012 election, using high-profile opportunities to plot slightly different paths toward the same goal.

On no issue is that more apparent than immigration.

Rubio had joined with three other Senate Republicans and four Senate Democrats in recent months to forge a bipartisan framework on a comprehensive overhaul to immigration laws that would provide undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. The Florida senator embarked on a media tour in the weeks following the framework’s unveiling to sell the plan to skeptical conservatives, doing the legwork to build political cover for the plan (and gain valuable exposure to the Republican base in the meanwhile).

Paul made clear with a speech on Tuesday – in which he unveiled his own plan creating an eventual pathway to citizenship – that Rubio isn’t the only GOP player on the issue. 

“Immigration reform will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution,” Paul told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “I am here today to begin that conversation.” 

Both Paul and Rubio might support the broader goal of immigration reform; they both took strides to carve out public roles for themselves in the process. 

For her part, Rubio ally Ana Navarro said the notion of a rivalry between the two men was “overblown by the media.” 

“Rand Paul is a leader in the Republican Party, and he should add his voice to the debate on immigration. His voice can and does make a difference,” she said. “The bottom line is, this is not an issue Marco or any one senator individually can or should carry alone on his shoulders. The more people helping to carry the ball, the more likely we will cross the finish line.” 

But while the two senators might not share a formal rivalry, they are undoubtedly two of the GOP’s biggest stars right now whose utterances alone command attention.

Look no further than last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, where Paul and Rubio finished first and second, respectively, in the gathering’s closely-watched straw poll. A quarter of straw poll participants supported Paul and 23 percent threw their support behind Rubio. (The two gave back-to-back speeches on Thursday at CPAC.) The next closest finisher in the straw poll checked in at 7 percent.

The close finish between the two senators reflects all the work beyond immigration they’ve each done to burnish their profiles in 2013.

Republican leaders, of course, tapped Rubio to deliver their official response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address – a speech that was generally well received for its content, if ridiculed for the Florida senator’s awkward pause for a swig of bottled water.

Delivering the official Tea Party response to the State of the Union that very evening? None other than Paul.

Rubio has also built up his foreign policy credentials by taking a trip in February to Israel and Jordan, and delivering major policy addresses (including one about that trip abroad).

Paul, meanwhile, drew considerable attention for his filibuster of Obama’s nominee to head the CIA on March 6, a 13-hour affair that won him praise from fellow Republicans. (Rubio at one point appeared on the Senate floor to deliver his own remarks in favor of Paul’s efforts.)

"Rand has made progress with the filibuster," said Dave Carney, the chief strategist for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign and a political consultant based in the influential primary state of New Hampshire. "Neither one has huge advantage here as of now."

Both senators are undeniably positioning themselves with 2016 in mind. Paul is at least open about that, acknowledging his potential interest in seeking the Republican nomination (like his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas) in several interviews. The Iowa GOP on Tuesday announced that Paul would headline their Lincoln Day dinner, further stoking speculation.

Rubio’s team is quicker to downplay the Florida senator’s ambitions, dismissing any talk of a presidential campaign as far too premature, just a few months removed from the last campaign.

But as each of them jockey for pole position heading into 2016, it may fall to the differences between Rubio and Paul to distinguish themselves from each other. For starters, Paul tends to emphasize a more libertarian and cautious foreign policy, while Rubio has generally been more willing to strike hawkish tones.

Both senators’ CPAC speeches are also instructive in parsing out how they make their pitch to conservatives.

Paul made a firm appeal, for instance, to revolutionize the Republican Party, and return the GOP to its small-government, libertarian roots.

“They want leaders that won't feed them a line of crap or sell them short. They aren't afraid of individual liberty,” he said of the new generation of young conservatives, calling the current GOP establishment “stale and moss-covered.”

Rubio, by contrast, emphasized his own biography as the son of immigrants, and stressed aspirational tone in his speech to CPAC.

“We don’t need a new idea, the idea is America, and it still works,” the Florida senator said.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, served up a familiar portion of conservative red meat to CPAC attendees on Thursday, endearing himself to activists who could help propel him to a higher political office in the future. 

Rubio received a rock star's welcome before speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he used his 15-some-minute slot to extol traditional conservative positions on taxes, education, abortion, same-sex marriage and trade with China. 

"We don't need a new idea. The idea's America, and it still works," said Rubio, to major applause, anticipating that liberals would criticize his remarks for offering no new ideas.

But the Florida senator declined to ruffle any feathers, too. He didn't even mention the immigration overhaul on which he's worked, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented residents currently in the United States.

Rather, Rubio argued to conservatives that there is no need to abandon their bedrock principles amid a bout of soul-searching within the GOP about how to broaden the party's appeal. The Florida senator repeatedly noted that the world has changed, but made the case for why standby Republican policies should stay the same. 

"Just because I believe that states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot," he said. 

"The people who are actually close-minded in American politics are the people that love to preach about the certainty of science in regards to our climate, but ignore the absolute fact that science has proven that life begins at conception," Rubio added.

Providing his prescription for the GOP as it searches for a winning path forward, Rubio said: "Our challenge is to create an agenda applying our principles — our principles, they still work — applying our time-tested principles to the challenges of today."

In essence, Rubio firmly staked himself in the camp of Republicans who argue that the party's makeover is more cosmetic than policy-based. 

And the one issue on which Rubio has been willing to defy party orthodoxy — immigration — went unmentioned.

The Republican Party’s internal struggle over how to expand its reach will play out in stark relief at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, with activists locked in a near-civil war over the basic question of who should be part of the movement – and who should not.

This year’s meeting has already made news with its exclusion of notable names from the invite list: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. 

There will be plenty of conservative stars, like Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (among other potential 2016 presidential candidates). And attendees will have a chance to reacquaint themselves with familiar names and faces from the not-so-distant past such as Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and the ubiquitous Donald Trump.

But the annual conservative confab comes at a serious and crucial moment for the Republican Party: Its last two presidential nominees lost decisively to President Barack Obama, and its lone instrument of power -- the GOP majority in the House -- has been constantly plagued by infighting between conservative insurgents and its establishment-minded leadership.

And the American right seems as divided as ever over the path forward.

“I think, increasingly, we as Republicans have come across as intolerant and unfocused on the needs of the underserved,” said Fred Malek, a fixture of GOP politics for decades.

“And we need to speak much more to the aspirational needs of people, and not speak about the dependence of the ‘47 percent,’” he added, referencing 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous comments, “but rather how the ‘47 percent’ become part of the 25 percent or 10 percent or 1 percent.”

Ideological fealty to marginalize GOP?
That internal struggle threatens to spill into the open at CPAC, a gathering that has been established as an important gathering for official Republicans, yet still attracts the kind of stalwart conservative activists who have helped to ignite this GOP family feud. 

“I thought it was a mistake to exclude Christie,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman who remains active in the party’s political leadership. “It reinforces this narrow, closed stereotype of Republicans.”

Christie angered conservatives by agreeing to implement insurance exchanges under Obama’s health care reform law, and for praising the president’s handling of Hurricane Sandy just days before the election. McDonnell upset conservatives with his new transportation law, which includes some new taxes.

“I would argue that they do not have too much to offer up in terms of the future of the conservative movement,” Jeff Bell, of the American Principles Project, said of the two governors.

Those warring views cut to the heart of the modern GOP’s internal rift. On one side are conservatives who are eager to excommunicate Republicans who commit the slightest act of ideological heresy. The other faction is composed of Republicans who worry that the party’s insistence on ideological fealty will continue to marginalize the GOP amid a changing electorate.

Though no immediate resolution is in sight, the Republican National Committee will weigh in following its own autopsy of the party’s shortcomings during last fall’s elections. It will recommend improved digital operations and a more robust outreach, but is also expected to emphasize the need for some candidates to speak in less shrill terms about sensitive issues.

“We can’t run the same campaigns. For some, it means that boneheaded comments about rape and women – that’s just not going to fly,” said a source familiar with the report, referencing GOP Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri who lost winnable races last fall due to their controversial comments about rape.

Romney's first remarks since election
The forthcoming RNC report and this week’s CPAC gathering add up to a potentially pivotal week for the future of the party.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio addresses the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 9, 2012.

And though McDonnell and Christie were excluded from the gathering, other corners of the GOP will be well-represented. Tea Party darlings like Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will each speak.

Also on display will be conservatives who may hope to unify the GOP as the party’s presidential nominee in 2016. Along with Rubio, Paul and Ryan, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will also address attendees.

The influential conference concludes with an oft-hyped, closely watched straw poll of attendees’ preference in a presidential nominee.

A past winner of two such straw polls, Romney, will make his first public speech since the election on Friday. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose national star power has waxed and waned in the scope of a single presidential election cycle, will speak on Saturday.

“There’s going to be a lot of heat, but not much light,” on the presidential front said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer and conservative PR guru. “It’s not going to resolve itself until the first stirrings of the 2014 midterm elections.”

Related:

On eve of CPAC, GOP searches for identity, policy principles

Obama's meeting with GOP: Cordial, but no consensus

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 14, 2013 4:31 AM EDT

It is polls like this that supporters of Hillary Clinton hope will drag the popular former secretary of state into the 2016 presidential race.

In a Quinnipiac poll out Thursday, the ex-New York senator beats all comers in the 2016 presidential field in hypothetical match ups against several top rivals.

The poll tested Democrats Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo individually against Republicans -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who ran as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick in 2012 against President Barack Obama.

Clinton was the only Democrat to beat all three Republicans, and Christie, who was not invited to next week’s conservative confab CPAC, showed the most strength for the GOP.

Clinton beats Christie, 45-37 percent, Ryan 50-38 percent, and Rubio by an even wider 50-34 percent.

By contrast, Biden would lose narrowly to Christie 43-40 percent. Biden, however, defeats Rubio 45-38 percent and Ryan 45-42 percent.

Cuomo -- son of ex-Gov. Mario Cuomo, who had been urged to run for president in 1988 and 1992 -- loses badly to neighboring state governor Christie, 45-28 percent. He also loses to Ryan, 42-37 percent and would tie with Rubio at 37 percent.

Clinton left her job as Obama’s secretary of state with sky-high favorability ratings -- 56 percent viewed her positively, while just 25 percent viewed her negatively.

Of course, if she were to throw her hat into the presidential arena, her image would likely take a hit, as partisans retreat to their corners. During the height of the Democratic primary in March 2008, for example, Clinton’s favorability was just 37 percent positive, 48 percent negative.

But as the primary campaign ended, and she was able to take on the statesman role of secretary of state, her image has been rehabilitated. 

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 8:57 AM EST

As Marco Rubio works to build his profile nationally, Americans who do have an opinion of the Florida senator have a slightly net-negative toward him.

A Pew Research Center poll released Wednesdayfound that 26 percent of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of the Florida Republican, versus 29 percent who have an unfavorable opinion of Rubio. Thirty-one percent of the poll’s respondents said they hadn’t heard of Rubio; 15 percent said they couldn’t rate him.

The poll was conducted Feb. 14-17, following Rubio’s nationally-televised response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

The results suggest that Rubio has some work ahead of him to build his profile, and move voters’ opinion of him into net-positive territory, especially if he chooses to pursue the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

In addition to delivering the State of the Union response, Rubio has participated in bipartisan negotiations to craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill. He’s worked in recent weeks to sell that legislation to conservatives in particular. Rubio also took a high-profile, official trip to Israel and Jordan this week.

The poll found that independents held mixed views – 25 percent favorable, 24 percent unfavorable – toward Rubio.

The Florida senator fares much better among Republicans and Americans who agree with the Tea Party.

Forty-nine percent of Republicans say they have a favorable opinion toward Rubio, versus 18 percent who have an unfavorable opinion of him; nearly a third of Republicans, 32 percent, could not offer a rating of Rubio in the Pew poll. Those who agree with the Tea Party more broadly favor Rubio, 70 to 7 percent.

The Pew poll has a 3.7 percent margin of error for its total sample of all Americans. The subsample of Republicans has a 7.3 percent margin of error, and the subsample of independents has a 6.6 percent margin of error.

Sen. Marco Rubio really wants nothing to do with President Barack Obama's immigration backup plan.

Rubio's office on Tuesday released a statement insisting that the plan the Florida Republican is working on has "major differences" from the White House blueprint that was leaked to USA Today over the weekend. Spokesman Alex Conant pointed to a number of measures they say are missing from the White House plan: tying the a path to citizenship to border security, a new visa exit system and a plan to deal with future immigrants.

And Conant said no one in Rubio's office has met with the White House to talk immigration.

"President Obama and the White House staff are not working with Republicans on immigration reform. Senator Rubio’s office has never discussed immigration policy with anyone in the White House," Conant said.

On Tuesday, the White House insisted it was in fact working with lawmakers on the issue. Obama has said he wants the Senate to write a bipartisan immigration proposal, but that he'll release his own plan if that process drags.

"We have been in contact with everyone involved in this effort on Capitol Hill," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

Asked to clarify, Rubio's spokesman said the administration had sent agency officials to brief Senate staffers for the bipartisan group of eight senators who are working on immigration reform -- but insisted policy was not discussed.

Gary Cameron / Reuters

Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

"They've never asked for our input. (And, frankly, we've never asked for theirs.)," Conant wrote in an email.
Senior administration officials said that staffers from the White House had attended at least 5 briefings with congressional staffers working on bipartisan reform. At different points, officials from relevant government agencies also briefed the staff group.

Some Republicans have suggested the White House's separate plan could help GOP supporters distance themselves from the president and highlight the compromises in a Senate plan. Rubio's office rejected that analysis.

"The White House has injected additional partisanship into an already difficult process, and raised fresh questions about the president’s seriousness about passing reform," Conant said.

Obama’s two speeches in one… First part was your typical SOTU; second part was emotional plea to curb gun violence… Obama on the economy, sequester… President also unveils laundry list of economic/educational proposals… Obama heads to Asheville, NC to deliver speech at noon ET… On Rubio’s tough assignment last night and on whether he expanded his party’s appeal… And yesterday’s vitriolic day at the Senate Armed Services Committee.

*** Obama’s two speeches in one: Perhaps the best way to view President Obama’s State of the Union address last night was a tale of two speeches (actually, you could even argue three speeches if you count the sequester portion, which we discuss below). The first part was your traditional State of the Union -- domestic policies proposed, praise for America’s resiliency, and recognition of the country’s military service members. As he did in his inaugural address, Obama also called for comprehensive immigration reform and efforts to combat climate change. But it was the second part that was something you don’t often see in a State of the Union -- an emotional conclusion in talking about his proposals to curb gun violence that ended up overshadowing the rest of the speech. Recognizing the parents of a slain Chicago teenager who performed at last month’s inauguration, Obama said, “They deserve a vote [in Congress].” He continued, “Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence –- they deserve a simple vote.” It was powerful stuff, and a reminder that the gun debate (as well as the emotion that goes with it) isn’t going away anytime soon. Yet with Obama asking simply for a vote, it was also a reminder that passing anything won’t be easy. It was actually a fairly low bar for success that the president set. 

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union speech on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 12, 2013.

*** Obama on the economy, sequester: The top of the president’s remarks were focused on the economy and the ongoing debate over the budget.  Obama warned that the so-called sequester -- the automatic spending cuts set to take place March 1 -- would hurt the economy. “These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness,” he said. “They’d devastate priorities like education, and energy, and medical research. “They would certainly slow our recovery, and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs.” He also noted that Congress had already reduced the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion, and he laid out proposals to curb Medicare spending. And he called for Congress to work together to resolve the budget issues. “Let’s agree right here, right now to keep the people’s government open, and pay our bills on time, and always uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America.” Buried in this speech is something that the president didn’t want to advertise, but that was placed in there as a hint to Republicans at where he’s ready to compromise on the deficit: He called for cuts to Medicare equal to what Bowles-Simpson proposed. He never said the number (not popular politically), but he stated the goal. Folks, this is where the compromise in March could happen.  

*** The laundry list of proposals: After opening with sequester and trying to frame the upcoming budget fights on his terms, the president then laid out a series of new initiatives. Universal pre-K. Infrastucture projects. Better training high-school students for technical jobs. Raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour. And creating a bipartisan commission to expand voting rights. We’re already hearing many Republicans dismissing these proposals as small bore. And, yes, we had Clinton flashbacks ourselves (remember the school uniforms?). But we’d note that this is a potential trap for the GOP. These are items -- especially the ones on education -- that many Americans care about, and they test REALLY WELL in polls. Republicans may want to claim all the ideas together are “liberal” and “big government,” but individually, these ideas poll test through the roof. They are 65% ideas, not 50%-50% ones. Today, Obama heads to Asheville, NC to begin selling his State of the Union with a speech at noon ET. (There, per the White House, he will tour a local factory to highlight the manufacturing policies he unveiled last night.) Tomorrow, he goes to Atlanta, GA. And on Friday, it’s to Chicago.

*** Rubio’s tough assignment: As we wrote last week, giving the State of the Union response hasn’t always been the best stepping stone to higher office. And with Marco Rubio’s response last night, we saw why. While the president gets to address a packed Congress and recognize individual citizens sitting in the audience, the responder often speaks to an empty room or office. While the president gets applause and opportunities for TV camera cutaways (and thus maybe a chance to take a swig of water), the responder looks straight into the camera with no one else there and with no chance for a break. That’s why the viral moment of Rubio gulping down water -- a moment he’s since joked about -- was so jarring. But even take away that water-gulping moment, Rubio’s speech shows you why the State of the Union response is such a tough assignment and one that’s fraught with peril. When it comes to music concerts, the main act is the final event. But the State of the Union is the only instance we can think of where the main act goes first and the side act is last.

*** Did he broaden the party’s reach? But here’s a separate question we have: Did Rubio broaden his party’s reach? While he’s younger than Mitt Romney and has a more relatable life story, Rubio’s speech was almost a rehash of almost everything we heard from Romney and the GOP in 2012. He accused Obama of believing that the free enterprise system is the source of America’s problems (when the president praised it in his State of the Union); he said that Obama wants to grow the size of the government; and he attacked the health-care law. All of those messages had hundreds of millions of dollars behind them in the 2012 presidential election, and Republicans got just 47% of the vote in the presidential election. There is no doubt that Rubio is a GOP politician with a bright future and plenty of personal appeal. But it also seemed like Rubio was preaching to the Republican choir rather than broadening the party’s reach. It’s a speech that is being very well received among conservatives, but was it a persuasion speech?

*** A vitriolic day at the Senate Armed Services Committee: Besides Obama’s State of the Union and Rubio’s response, the other big political event yesterday was Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary passing through the Senate Armed Services by a party-line vote. But the actual vote got overshadowed by something else. The New York Times: “At times, the meeting slipped into an unusually accusatory and bitter back-and-forth, with Republicans like Ted Cruz, a freshman senator from Texas, going as far as to suggest that Mr. Hagel had accepted money from nations that oppose American interests. Saying that he had serious doubts about the source of payments that Mr. Hagel had accepted for speaking engagements, Mr. Cruz declared, ‘It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea.’” That back-and-forth added fuel to the fire that the Senate is -- more and more -- turning into the more combative House of Representatives. On the other hand, with Democratic senators and even John McCain stepping in to rebuke Cruz (“No one on this committee should at any time impugn his character or his integrity”), it was a reminder that there’s a line you can’t cross in the Senate. Cruz is cementing himself as someone who doesn’t play by the old rules; that will make him popular with many non-Beltway conservatives. But he’s not making a lot of friends in the Senate (even among Republicans).

*** On the Hill today: The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on comprehensive immigration reform at 9:30 am ET, and Jack Lew’s confirmation hearing to be Treasury secretary takes place before the Senate Finance Committee at 10:00 am ET.

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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio sought to put a softer face on Republicans’ small-government agenda, accusing President Barack Obama of spreading blame for his own administration’s shortcomings.

Rubio used the official Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday to advance the friendlier tone the GOP has sought to project after two straight drubbings in presidential elections.

Related: Obama challenges GOP, presses big agenda at State of the Union

A 41-year-old Cuban-American, Rubio referenced his own experience on matters such as immigration and entitlements. But he also used the spotlight to showcase well-known Republican positions: for a balanced budget amendment, for instance, and against stricter gun control that Obama wants.

“Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich,” Rubio said, in a line representative of Republicans’ effort to shirk their caricature of a party favoring the wealthy. “I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.”

A rising star within the Republican Party who is regarded as a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Rubio used much of his speech to lay into Obama with familiar criticisms. He accused the president of demonizing the GOP for its resistance to the administration’s agenda.

“There are valid reasons to be concerned about the president’s plan to grow our government. But any time anyone opposes the president’s agenda, he and his allies usually respond by falsely attacking their motives,” Rubio said.

Rubio’s moment in the spotlight was eagerly awaited by many Republicans, but at one point the spotlight seemed to affect him: Rubio ducked to his left, and almost out of camera range, to pick up a small bottle of water and take a gulp.

The unusual break in the speech was quickly mocked on Twitter. Within minutes of the speech, Poland Spring — the brand that Rubio reached for — was a trending topic.

The Florida senator was part of a bipartisan so-called Gang of Eight who last month presented a framework for immigration reform. It called for securing the U.S.-Mexican border before dealing with the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.

He sounded those themes again Tuesday and said: “First, we must follow through on the broken promises of the past to secure our borders and enforce our laws.”

Rubio devoted a sizable portion of his address to attacking Obama’s proposals on the federal budget. He said that he hoped the president would “abandon his obsession with raising taxes” and instead focus on economic growth.

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The senator, who said that he himself had only just paid off $100,000 in student loans, accused Obama of blaming President George W. Bush for a rising federal debt when Obama “created more debt in four years than his predecessor did in eight.”

Rubio’s speech sets the stage for this spring’s fight over Democratic and Republican proposals to resolve the so-called sequester — automatic spending cuts to government programs set to take effect March 1.

The Obama administration has said that the cuts would hamper economic growth and harm national security.

Rubio accused Obama of seeking “devastating” cuts to the military and said that the answer to the nation’s fiscal problems in stronger economic growth and creating “new taxpayers, not new taxes.”

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Rubio framed Washington fights over taxes and spending in personal terms. He spoke of retirees in his neighborhood who depend on Social Security, and how Medicare helped both his mother and his late father.

“I would never support any changes to Medicare that would hurt seniors like my mother,” he said. “But anyone who is in favor of leaving Medicare exactly the way it is right now, is in favor of bankrupting it.”

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, giving a separate response address to a tea party group, suggested that not only should the automatic spending cuts standing — they should be greater.

“Washington acts in a way that your family never could,” he said, according to prepared remarks. “They spend money they do not have, they borrow from future generations, and then they blame each other for never fixing the problem.”

If Congress can’t pay its own bills and pass a budget, Paul said, “Sweep the place clean.”

President Barack Obama challenged Republicans on major tax and entitlement proposals in Tuesday's State of the Union address, unveiling sweeping new initiatives to boost the middle class while taking aim at GOP recalcitrance.

The president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for the annual speech, where he pressed Republicans to allow his proposals on issues ranging from taxes and entitlements to guns and immigration to move forward. While Obama seemed determined to advance his ambitious agenda, he must race against a window of opportunity that often closes quickly on presidents in their second terms. 

Moreover, the president's plans will have to survive the brier patch of Capitol Hill, where Republicans have strenuously opposed much of Obama’s agenda and are girding for a major springtime showdown on budgets and the swift, automatic spending cuts known as the sequester.

“Let's be clear: deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan,” said Obama, who argued that his second term priorities did not represent “bigger government,” but rather, “smarter government.”

Obama spent much of the first half of his speech challenging Republicans on that central issue after two years of legislating in Washington that saw the government lurch from the brink of a shut down to the brink of a debt-limit default to the brink of automatic tax hikes. 

“Let’s agree, right here, right now, to keep the people’s government open, pay our bills on time, and always uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of America,” the president said. 

The assertive rhetoric from Obama recalled the themes on which he successfully campaigned for re-election last fall. Tuesday’s speech mostly lived up to its billing by the White House as a coda to the liberal call-to-arms in Obama's second inaugural address on issues ranging from government spending to gay rights and immigration reform.

One issue on which Obama did not campaign -- stricter gun controls -- featured more poignantly in Tuesday's speech. Gun violence has unwittingly become a cornerstone of Obama's second term agenda following the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. last December.

Gun control is an issue on which Obama faces stiffer Republican resistance, and the president took a much more personal tack in pressing lawmakers to take up his proposals. He turned victims of high-profile shootings in attendance at Tuesday’s speech in urging lawmakers to, at the very least, allow his gun proposals a vote.

"Gabby Giffords deserves a vote," he said, referring to the critically injured former Arizona congresswoman in the House chamber. "The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote."

Obama’s speech on Tuesday was delivered in the same vein; the president embraced proposals that might encounter resistance in this Congress, such as new legislation to address climate change. But, in a reflection of Obama’s newfound feistiness in a second term, the president vowed to take executive action if Congress would not act.

Obama made other proposals he said would bolster the middle class. Among Obama’s proposals were: universal access to preschool for all four-year-olds, increasing the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour by the end of 2015, $50 billion in infrastructure spending, and partnerships to promote cleaner energy and improved manufacturing.

Those initiatives, the president pledged, should not increase the deficit “by a single dime.”

To help finance those initiatives, Obama called for broad individual and corporate tax reforms, as well as savings from entitlement programs like Medicare – changes to which have been a lightning rod in recent election cycles. Those proposals carefully track with Obama's previous demands to close loopholes and deductions to raise new revenue in tax reform.

But Republicans have argued that the matter of new revenue is “settled” following a fiscal cliff deal that saw the GOP relent to higher taxes on household income above $450,000. To that end, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in the official Republican response, called on Obama to “abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy.”

RELATED: Rubio to frame bitter tax, spending fights in humanizing terms

Obama’s ambitious plans come as he’s asking lawmakers to approve two other major proposals: comprehensive immigration reform that gives undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, and a series of tighter controls on firearms as part of a broader effort to curb gun violence.

On immigration, the president lauded a bipartisan Senate group’s work on immigration.

Slideshow: State of the Union

Charles Dharapak / Pool / EPA

Click to see pictures from President Obama's State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress.

Launch slideshow

“As we speak, bipartisan groups in both chambers are working diligently to draft a bill, and I applaud their efforts,” he said. “Now let’s get this done. Send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months, and I will sign it right away."

But for as much as fiscal matters and economic policy have dominated discussion in Washington, Obama devoted a good part of his State of the Union speech to foreign policy – highlighting in particular the planned withdrawal of 34,000 American troops from Afghanistan in the next year, a tangible symbol of how that war is winding to its end.

Obama also used his speech to address some of the emergent national security issues. He condemned North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday and pledged to work with Congress to develop rules for the use of unmanned aerial drones in targeting terrorists for assassination. The administration has faced new scrutiny on that latter issue amid the revelation of a new White House memo arguing that the president has wide latitude to target Americans for assassination if they’re deemed to be assisting terrorist actors.

Obama additional announced a new executive order to inoculate U.S. infrastructure from a cyber-attack, by enabling greater information-sharing between the government and its partners and calling for the development of a National Infrastructure Protection Plan within 240 days.

The event, as always, was filled with Washington pomp and circumstance, including lawmakers to arrived hours earlier to reserve prime seats for themselves. Also, in keeping with tradition, outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu was kept spirited away from the Capitol to ensure continuity of government in case of a security incident.

This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 8:35 PM EST

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will look to jettison Republicans’ caricature as a party of the rich in the official Republican response Tuesday to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

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Rubio, the Cuban-American senator and a rising Republican star, will frame Washington’s bitter fights over taxes and spending in humanizing terms. His remarks seem firmly tied to the broader Republican effort to expand its reach and shirk the image of a GOP that has grown older, whiter and more dominated by men.

“Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy,” Rubio will say, according to English-language excerpts released by his office. (Rubio will also deliver a pre-taped response in Spanish.)

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Florida Senator Marco Rubio speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Aug. 30, 2012 in Tampa.

“Mr. President, I don't oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors,” the Florida senator will add.

Rubio’s speech will also seize upon anemic U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of last year to argue that increased revenues would only stifle the sluggish recovery from the 2008 recession.

“Raising taxes won't create private sector jobs. And there's no realistic tax increase that could lower our deficits by almost $4 trillion,” Rubio will say. “That's why I hope the President will abandon his obsession with raising taxes and instead work with us to achieve real growth in our economy."

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The Republican’s speech sets the stage for this spring’s fight over alternative Democratic and Republican budget proposals, both of which are tied into resolving the so-called “sequester” – the swift, automatic spending cuts that make up part of the “fiscal cliff.” Lawmakers delayed the onset of these cuts until Mar. 1, but lawmakers appear nowhere near a deal to avoid its effects, which would threaten to hamper economic growth and harm national security, according to the Obama administration.

Among other policy specifics upon which Rubio will touch are budgets and entitlement reforms. The first-term senator will call for ratifying a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution – a proposal that has failed before in Congress – as well as changes to Medicare that would shore up the program’s solvency for future generations.