The House of Representatives successfully passed Republicans' 2014 budget on Thursday with four votes to spare, relying only upon GOP votes to advance Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's third budget blueprint.

The House voted 221-207, largely along party lines, to advance the budget for the next government fiscal year. The plan seeks to balance the budget within a decade, primarily by saving $4.6 trillion through cuts to spending, and reforms to Medicare that would transform the plan into a "premium support" (or voucher) system.

Ten Republicans joined with Democrats, all of whom opposed the Ryan budget, to vote against the plan. Due to the defections, Republicans only passed their budget by an extra margin of four votes. Ten Republicans also opposed last year's budget, though there were 241 total GOP members of the House last year, versus 232 sitting Republicans at the time of today's vote.

The budget is the third passed by Republicans since retaking the House in the 2010 elections. But like the two preceding budgets, Ryan's 2014 fiscal blueprint will likely never become law, due to opposition from both the president and Senate Democrats.

The House moved quickly following the budget vote to pass legislation settling spending levels for the rest of this fiscal year, which concludes at the end of September.

The House voted 318-109 with bipartisan support to pass a continuing resolution funding the government through that date, averting a government shutdown that would have occurred at the end of March if spending authority had run out. The Senate passed that legislation on Wednesday, and it now heads to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature, once he returns from a foreign trip to Israel.

Paul Ryan — the GOP's 2012 vice presidential nominee — declined to weigh in on the direction of his party during a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference and focused his remarks instead on the budget he authored this week

The Wisconsin congressman, who chairs the House Budget Committee, focused his remarks at CPAC almost exclusively on the budget he produced on Tuesday, the third he has written as chairman of the panel.

Ryan's budgets helped build his notoriety among conservatives, and propelled him to the spot as Mitt Romney's running mate last fall. But amid Republican soul-searching about the party's path forward, Ryan stuck to remarks about his budget — a series of proposals that are already generally popular among conservatives.

"This has been a really big week. We got white smoke from the Vatican, and we got a budget from the Senate," he joked. "But when you read it, you find the Vatican's not the only place blowing smoke this week."

Ryan's just one of several speakers thought to be possible contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Among others, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both spoke yesterday.

Those two senators concentrated their remarks mostly on the direction of the GOP, and why — or why not — the party is in need of reinvention.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., speaks about the 2014 Budget Resolution during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2013.

Ryan's remarks were mostly a rehash of his press conferences and media appearances in support of his budget.

"Today, I want to make the case for balance," he said. "That case, in a nutshell, is that a balanced budget will create a healthier economy."

The man whom Ryan hoped would become president this year, Mitt Romney, will address CPAC later this afternoon.

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:11 AM EDT

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

When House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan was asked why his latest budget repeals the 2010 federal health-care -- despite the results of last year's presidential election -- the former Republican vice-presidential running mate gave this answer.

"So just because the election didn't go our way," he told National Review," that means we're supposed to change our principles?"

But on the eve of the three-day Conference Political Action Conference (CPAC) that begins on Thursday in the DC area and that will hear from countless Republican politicians, Ryan's answer raises this follow-up question:

What principles -- beyond opposing President Obama's agenda?

Is the GOP a free-market party, or one that's willing to federally bail out the banks if the country is on the brink of another Great Depression?

Is it a party that believes in strong national defense, or is it willing to wage a nearly 13-hour filibuster to highlight how drones could infringe on civil liberties?

Is the GOP a party that stresses deficit reduction and balanced budgets above all else, or is it one willing to support unpaid-for wars and unpaid-for new entitlements?

Is it a party that favors comprehensive immigration reform, or that opposes it?

Does the GOP oppose tax increases, or will it vote for raising rates on the wealthiest Americans?

And is it a party that opposes gay marriage, or one that's becoming more accepting of it?

Yes, the GOP believes in lower taxes and less government. But as Politico's Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman write, many of the tensions above will be on display at CPAC as the party -- after its second-straight presidential loss -- finds itself in the midst of an "identity crisis."

"The pillars of the conservative era ushered in by Reagan — a muscular defense, traditional cultural values and devotion to free markets – are being questioned by leading Republicans, and what could take the place of the Gipper’s trinity is now being openly debated in a fashion more reminiscent of the famously fractious Democrats of yore."

Ryan, who speaks at CPAC on Friday, embodies many of these very tensions. He warns of deficits and debt, but supported the Iraq war, the Bush tax cuts, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. He believes in the free market, but voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (or TARP). And he now supports comprehensive immigration reform (and maybe even a path to citizenship), but was on a presidential ticket opposing it.

Of course, it's only natural for a party outside the White House to experience an identity crisis. After all, there's no one true leader to unify the different constituencies. And the one unifying force is opposing the president in power -- and that's true whether a Democrat or Republican sits in the Oval Office.

Indeed, after their second-straight presidential loss in 2004, Democrats faced a similar identity crisis. Should it strenuously oppose the Iraq war, or support it? Push for universal health care, or ignore it? Disagree with the Bush-era tax cuts, or call for them to expire?

Yet by the time the Democratic race for president began, the top candidates -- Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson -- were unified on all the big issues. They opposed the Iraq war; they supported universal health care; they were against the Bush tax cuts. That's why the Democratic primary was fought over the margins (like whether there should be a mandate for health insurance).

And for Republicans, that's the story to watch over the next couple of years. It's one thing for the party to experience an identity crisis in 2013 and 2014. It's another thing -- as Obama prepares to exit office -- to experience that in 2015 and 2016. 

Republicans on Tuesday debuted their full 2014 budget, an ambitious proposal that would seek to balance the budget within a decade, but which is also almost certain to never become law.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the Republican budget chief and 2012 vice presidential nominee, called his third budget an "invitation" to President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to begin bargaining toward a deal to balance the budget. 

"This is not only a responsible, reasonable, balanced plan," Ryan said, "it's also an invitation. This is an invitation to the president of the United States, to the Senate Democrats to come together to fix these problems."

But just as Obama has made new overtures to Ryan and other Capitol Hill Republicans in hopes of breaking the fiscal logjam in Congress, Ryan produced a new budget that offers up few concessions to Democrats, and doubles down upon many of the policies on which Republicans campaigned during last fall's election.

The new Ryan budget calls for repealing Obama's signature health care reform law, and sweeping changes to Medicare for anyone under the age of 54 -- familiar policies for which Republicans have aggressively pushed during the last two years. The budget's goal would be to eliminate all but two income tax brackets, one at 10 percent and the other at 25 percent; it would raise no new revenue through taxes, cutting against the president's own demands for additional revenue.

Click here for the full text of the budget (.pdf)

"While the House Republican budget aims to reduce the deficit, the math just doesn't add up," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

But the White House stopped short of waging a blistering assault on the Ryan plan, offering a glimmer of hope that bipartisanship might still eventually carry the day. 

"While the president disagrees with the House Republican approach, we all agree we need to leave a better future for our children," Carney said. "The president will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to grow the economy and cut the deficit in a balanced way."

Still, Ryan defended the generally unflinching conservatism of his budget.

"That means we surrender our principles? That means we stop believing in what we believe in?" he asked at a press conference to debut his proposals. "Elections do have consequences ... This is our offer, this is our vision."

The GOP proposal comes amid new overtures by Obama to Republicans in Congress. The president had lunch last week with Ryan, and dinner with a group of GOP senators. Obama will address House and Senate Republicans separately this week, marking a pivot in his strategy toward vexing fiscal issues following bruising battles over the fiscal cliff during the first two months of this year.

Related: Ryan plan sparks budget battle

This latest GOP plan -- the third authored by Ryan since Republicans retook the House in 2010 -- is the opening salvo in a spring full of budget battles, culminating in the mid-May expiration of the nation's borrowing authority. Congress authorized a suspension of the debt limit through that deadline, but made it contingent upon the House and Senate each passing their own budget. (Republicans have repeatedly needled Senate Democrats for failing to pass a budget in recent years.)

"I hate to break the suspense, but their budget won't balance—ever," Ryan wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. "We House Republicans have done our part … Now we invite the president and Senate Democrats to join in the effort."

Mandel Ngan / Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan makes his way to the West Wing on March 7, 2013 for a lunch with President Barack Obama.

Ryan's blueprint claims to achieve $4.6 trillion in savings over through 2023, and steadily reduce government spending as a share of gross domestic product in the meantime. In his op-ed, Ryan asserted the reforms could boost gross national product by as much as 1.7 percent.  Ryan's previous plan projected a balanced budget outside of ten years. 

But the plan also relies on savings accrued from two plans which Republicans had staunchly opposed: the new taxes on the wealthy in the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deal, and the $715 billion in savings from cuts to Medicare providers as part of Obama's health care reform law. 

Of the new taxes, Ryan said that Republicans were "not going to re-fight the past." When pressed as to how that principle squares with his budget's goal of repealing Obamacare, Ryan pivoted, and said that the health reform law would be so onerous, that the eventual GOP replacement would be an improvement. 

It would achieve its goal through a series of sweeping reforms, most of which are unlikely to survive the Democratic Senate or a presidential veto threat.

Ryan's budget again seeks changes to Medicare, namely by establishing an exchange of private plans (including traditional Medicare) from which seniors could choose, with the assistance of a premium support voucher. The plan would apply for those under the age of 54 — a threshold one year younger than past Ryan proposals — and also employ means-testing, in which wealthier seniors pay a higher share of their premiums.

The Ryan budget also calls for repealing the health care reform law (though it would leave in place savings from cuts in payments to medical providers, a component against which Ryan and Mitt Romney railed during last fall's campaign).

Related: From continuing resolutions to budget blueprints: What you need to know about money wrangling

The campaign also focused heavily on Ryan's past budgets, as Obama and Democratic candidates downballot railed against similar proposed changes to entitlement programs. Those attacks offered a vivid illustration of the political difficulties in putting such aggressive reform plans to paper. That experience helped inform the GOP's demand that Democrats produce their own alternative budget, through which Republican staffers will surely comb to exploit politically.

Ryan's own budget isn't short on additional conservative prescriptions, either. The 2014 budget calls for sweeping tax reform, with a goal of cutting the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and simplifying the income tax into two brackets. The tax cuts would be financed by closing loopholes and deductions in the tax code.

The Republican budget will also touch upon other social programs. It would block-grant Medicaid to states, and allow states more flexibility, too, in implementing welfare programs. Ryan's plan would also freeze the current maximum support for students awarded as Pell Grants, a popular program with students (and young voters) that Obama had expanded in his first term.

The proposals, as a whole, amount to a deeply conservative set of proposals offered against the backdrop of new hopes for bipartisan fiscal talks in Washington.

Obama's renewed outreach — and Republicans' relatively warm reception of it — has stoked the embers of hope that lawmakers may finally reach the kind of grand fiscal deal that has eluded them during the past few years. As Ryan unveils his new budget, Obama's own reaction could either preserve these renewed hopes, or allow them to wither after just a few days.

To that end, Obama was set to speak to House Republicans on Wednesday, and Senate Republicans on Thursday. He was also scheduled to give an interview to ABC News on Tuesday, which could be his first on-camera reactions to Ryan's new proposal.

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:07 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

Republicans are dug in as ever against raising new taxes, and their budgetary standard-bearer, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, said Sunday that the Republican House of Representatives has already moved past the question of new revenues. 

Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and former GOP vice presidential nominee, laid out the contours of what will almost certainly be a bruising springtime debate on taxes and spending — an outgrowth of the unresolved consequences of the "fiscal cliff."

And as the GOP-held House and the Democratic-controlled Senate prepare dueling budget proposals, Ryan argued that the president was unserious about tackling the mounting national debt. 

"The president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in his first live interview since the presidential election, when Ryan and presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost decisively to President Barack Obama. 

During the campaign, Romney and Ryan talked forcefully about reforming taxes and raising revenues by closing loopholes and deductions that favor the wealthy. While Democrats won higher taxes on household income over $450,000 as part of the New Year's deal to stave off the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in the fiscal cliff, Democrats now say they'll produce a budget asking for even more revenue, possibly through similar tax reforms.

"Are we for raising revenues? No we're not," Ryan said. "If you keep raising revenues, you're not going to get decent tax reform."

The Wisconsin congressman's comments portend a debate over taxes and spending in Washington featuring parties as far apart as ever. Republicans this week passed legislation to suspend the debt limit — and, with it, the specter of default — until May. But Congress must still reckon with the need to continue funding the government, and address the automatic and drastic spending cuts (known as the "sequester") that were delayed only for two months as part of the fiscal cliff.

"I think the sequester's going to happen," Ryan said, blaming Democrats for offering no palatable substitute for those cuts. 

And Ryan said that Republicans were "not interested" in a government shutdown, the consequence for which some GOP lawmakers have openly called should Obama and lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to fund the government.

But those looming questions — which are tied directly into the budgets that the House and Senate will debate this spring — reflect how Washington remained as vexed as ever by fiscal issues. 

And the rhetoric is hot as ever, too.

"I don't think that the president actually thinks we have a fiscal crisis," Ryan said. 

With tax and spending matters set to dominate much of lawmakers' energy for the first half of this year, it could make other elements of Obama's agenda — like immigration reform and curbing gun violence — more politically difficult. 

Ryan, who has praised a bipartisan set of immigration reforms offered by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, said he was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform this year. But Ryan said that Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike would closely watch Obama's speech on Tuesday in Nevada on that topic.

And of the president's gun control measures, Ryan suggested openness to embracing some measures — like requiring universal background checks on gun sales — while expressing skittishness toward other elements of the plan, like the ban on assault weapons.

As Ryan himself navigates these very thorny issues for the next four years, his every action will be refracted through the prism of 2016 presidential politics. After having emerged as something of a GOP rock star as Romney's running mate last fall, many Republicans hope that the Wisconsin congressman might seek the presidency himself in four years, joining a tentative field of Republican contenders for the nomination that is full of proverbial heavyweights.

Ryan offered a familiar answer about his own potential ambitions, saying he doesn't think about running, and that he was currently focused on his job serving his constituents. 

"I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do," he said. "I'll decide later about that."

House Republicans are discussing the prospect of a short-term extension in the nation's debt limit to avoid fault and give negotiations between lawmakers and the White House more time to succeed.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and erstwhile GOP vice presidential candidate, told reporters at House Republicans' retreat that members were "discussing the virtue of a short term debt limit extension."

Ryan elaborated that the idea would be to raise the nation’s borrowing authority for a few months and tie the matter into discussions with the White House and Senate on the other fiscal issues facing the country, such as the automatic spending cuts associated with the sequester and how to fund the government in the next fiscal year.

The comment is a significant development because it suggests there is movement in the House GOP Conference to avoid the debt limit when it's scheduled to hit in February, and instead shift the political battle in their favor by transforming the debate into a fight over shutting down the government or offsetting $110 billion dollars in cuts to defense and domestic programs.

When asked by NBC News whether he believed the House GOP Conference was unified enough to not have a repeat of the fiscal cliff fiasco, when many Republican lawmakers were reluctant to support plans by the GOP leadership, Ryan said, “We want people to have clear view of what's coming so there are no surprises, that means setting expectations accordingly so we can move forward in a unified basis.”

Ryan spent the morning with House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., briefing members about the upcoming “triple threat” of fiscal issues to be played out in Washington over the late winter and spring.  GOP aides tell NBC News the talks are part of an effort by the Republican leadership to gauge the mood of the conference as well as map out the best possible path for the party  in the next few months, so far they consider the response from members to be "positive."

The retreat is the House GOP’s annual occasion for members to talk to leadership, relax with their spouses and kids and also learn from communication professionals about to contour their message to fit the electorate. In light of the drubbing the GOP received amongst women and minorities in the 2012 election, the retreat will feature a seminar titled: “Coalitions-Discussion on Successful Communication with Minorities and Women.”

NEW YORK -- Less than a month after Mitt Romney's bid for the White House was suddenly snuffed out, his vice-presidential nominee and another top surrogate -- and fellow potential 2016 presidential candidate --delivered dueling speeches Tuesday that attempted to reframe Republican philosophy in what was a strikingly "Un-Romney" tone.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spoke first at the dinner, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was receiving an award from the foundation of Ryan's mentor, former Rep. Jack Kemp. Ryan's speech -- his first public address since the Nov. 6th loss -- echoed themes from his late October speech in Ohio on economic mobility, but little else from the fall campaign.

"We have a compassionate vision based on ideas that work - but sometimes we don't do a good job of laying out that vision. We need to do better," Ryan said Tuesday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, an almost word-for-word recitation of what he said Oct. 24th in Cleveland.

It was in that policy speech just two weeks before Election Day that a glimpse of what the post-election Wisconsin congressman would look like. The Ohio speech was Ryan's brainchild on the trail, reflecting his personal passion for the topic, and the idea of an upwardly mobile society that could be built on Republican principles.

The speech was the only one of its kind Ryan gave during the 80-plus days he was on Romney's ticket, and perhaps reflecting concerns that Ryan's remarks were off the nominee's messaging, Romney held his own event during Ryan's speech that day, which soaked up news coverage.

But speaking at the Kemp dinner Tuesday evening, the seven-term congressman launched himself back onto the national stage without Romney or his advisers guiding the message.

While Ryan praised Romney by name as someone who he felt "would have been a great president," he also very publically distanced himself from his former ticket mate’s "47 percent" remarks to donors at a private fundraiser last spring.

In the remarks, captured by surreptitious video recording, Romney claimed 47 percent of Americans are "dependent upon government" and would therefor only vote for President Barack Obama and his vision of a larger government.

"Both parties tend to divide Americans into 'our voters' and 'their voters,'” Ryan said. “But Republicans must steer far clear of that trap. We must speak to the aspirations and anxieties of every American. I believe we can turn the engines of upward mobility back on, so that no one is left out from the promise of America. But it's going to require a bold departure from the approach that government has taken for the last five decades."

If Ryan was cautiously backing away from the GOP ticket's rhetoric in his remarks, Rubio turned on his heel and walked away from it completely. In his 4,185 words of prepared remarks, two words were notably missing: Mitt and Romney.

The Florida senator and Tea Party darling focused his remarks on a segment of the population whose imagination the Romney campaign tried, and largely failed, to capture: the middle class.

Praising the large and stable middle class as something uniquely American, Rubio took aim at what he called a growing "opportunity gap" between those born into the middle class and those who are left to struggle from humbler means to try and get there.

"For those of us blessed with the opportunity to serve our country in government, one of the fundamental challenges before us is to find an appropriate and sustainable role for government in closing this gap between the dreams of millions of Americans and the opportunities for them to actually realize them," Rubio said, according to prepared remarks.

"The key to a vibrant middle class is an abundance of jobs that pay enough so that workers can provide for themselves and their families, enjoy leisure time, save for retirement, and pay for their children’s education, so they can grow up and earn even more than their parents."

Compare that to Romney's own comments on what he called the "opportunity society" he hoped to create, which focused more on the idea of government getting out of the way of business, which could lift up the American people.

"I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of our opportunity society, led by free people and their free enterprises," Romney said in a speech in Wisconsin March 30th. "The only real solution to help communities devastated by lost jobs is more jobs. President Obama never seems to have understood the basic point that a plant closes when the business starts to lose money. So when the president attacks businesses for making money, and when his policies make it more difficult for businesses to make money, he's also attacking the very communities he wanted to help."

Romney's rhetoric toward the middle class focused, as did much of his campaign, on creating jobs. His five-point plan for creating jobs and helping the middle class touched on macro issues like controlling debt, supporting free trade and the amorphous phrase "champion small business."

That type of tone, appealing to the “job creators” more than those looking for work could have led to the polling data First Read noted this morning: Obama beat Romney by 10 points (53%-43%) on which candidate was more in touch with people like you, and, 53% said Romney's policies would favor the rich (compared to just 10% for Obama).

And while Rubio's policy prescriptions rarely deviated from Republican orthodoxy (he noted he opposed tax increases, and praised faith-based and community organizations as key to stemming "societal breakdown,") he used even his personal story -- and son-of-immigrants background -- to create a contrast with the former Republican standard bearer and paint the Republican Party as not just the party of the wealthy.

Whereas Romney infamously noted his well-to-do friends (NASCAR and NFL team owners have dubious mentions in the campaign record) and regularly highlighted successful entrepreneurs he had met on the campaign trail, Rubio closed with an anecdote of someone further down the income ladder.

"A few weeks ago, I was giving a speech at a fancy hotel in New York City,” he said. “When I arrived in the banquet hall, I was approached by a group of three uniformed employees from the hotels catering department. They had seen my speech at the Republican Convention, where I told the story of my father the ‘Banquet Bartender.’ And they had a gift for me. They presented me with this name tag, which says, ‘Rubio, Banquet Bartender.’ That moment reminded me that there are millions of Mario Rubios all across America today. They aren’t looking for a handout; they just want a job that provides for their families."

With both men striking similar notes it seems clear that at least these top Republican leaders see an inclusive message as a possible path back from the wilderness. Whether either of Tuesday's speakers will become the messenger, remains to be seen. 

Garrett Haake and Alex Moe were both 2012 presidential campaign embeds for NBC News. Haake covered Mitt Romney and Moe covered Paul Ryan and others.

Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

From governor's son to presidential contender, a look at the life of Republican Mitt Romney.

Launch slideshow

If Mitt Romney had won the presidential election, insiders say, it’s not hard to imagine what he and his number two, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, would have been tackling on this very day.

An extensive preparation plan dubbed the "Romney Readiness Project," pulled together by the GOP nominee’s team and no longer of any use, offers detailed insight into how ready he was to take the reins, the sources told NBC News.

Romney and Ryan each had office space set aside for them at a transition office in southwest Washington, D.C., where former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt led a team of hundreds of advisers tasked with crafting an ambitious agenda for the Republican’s first 200 days in office.

Insiders describe a well-prepared transition that was ready to hit the ground running on Nov. 7, and begin the work of fashioning a Romney government.

Leavitt was in Boston on Election Day, prepared to brief Romney if the GOP nominee proved victorious.

"We built a great ship, and regrettably, in my view, we didn't sail. I think it would have been a crisp transition," Leavitt said in an interview with NBC News. "I got up every morning from the day he asked me to do this — not naively — assuming that we would be elected, and we needed to be prepared."

Charles Dharapak / AP

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt is seen in this June 23, 2012 file photo.

The extensive and well-prepared operation resembled the inner workings of Bain Capital, the venture capital firm founded by Romney, according to multiple sources associated with the transition, who asked not to be identified to more candidly discuss the process.

“In many ways, it felt like the West Wing,” one transition official said in praise of the professional environment.

The preparations were enabled by a 2010 law, the “Pre-Election Presidential Transition Act,” which afforded Romney (along with any other future nominees) government support and office space to begin the arduous work of planning a handover of government. Officials in the transition team were allowed use of a government email address ending in “@ptt.gov.”

Romney was the first major party nominee able to take advantage of this law, and in June he selected Leavitt, who served as Utah governor while Romney headed the Salt Lake City Olympics, to lead the effort.

Sources described Leavitt as having taken seriously Romney’s mandate to prepare a new administration. The former Department of Health and Human Services secretary told NBC News that he reviewed books and manuscripts to prepare for his role, in addition to speaking to individuals involved in transitions from the Carter through Obama administrations.

The Romney transition was divided into groups that focused on specific areas of emphasis – the economy, foreign policy, education, for instance – to help shape policy for the early days of a Romney administration, as well as personnel.

Among the plans for the transition included the formation of teams that would begin immediately working with government agencies to lay the groundwork for the new administration.

There were “landing teams” prepared to go into government agencies two weeks after the election and begin the work of handing over to a Romney administration. Separate “beachhead” teams would then be deployed into those agencies immediately following the inauguration on Jan. 20.

“They'd obviously thought about structure and process,” said one transition adviser.

Additionally, plans included the crafting of an agenda detailing what actions Romney would take — mostly to follow through with campaign promises — beginning the Thursday after Inauguration Day. 

"We had the first 45 days of the administration scheduled," Leavitt said. "We felt there was a need for crisp and early action. We were literally writing executive orders. It was a federal government in miniature."

According to Leavitt, many preparations involved assembling a menu of options for Romney to enact his plans for government or to make good on campaign pledges, like labeling China a currency manipulator or allowing the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

But Leavitt also emphasized that no decisions were ever made.

The transition’s portfolio also included the early work of approaching potential candidates to head cabinet agencies, along with prospective nominees for other positions that would require Senate confirmation. Those candidates were also vetted at a very preliminary level.

The end result was a list of 10 candidates for each cabinet post, which was pared down by Leavitt and two other campaign confidants: Beth Myers, Romney’s former chief of staff who led the search for his vice presidential nominee, and Bob White, a longtime Romney friend and associate.

The hope was to have Romney name many of his top cabinet nominees by Thanksgiving – this week, in essence. But, according to one transition source, Romney was never made privy to these rosters of would-be administration officials. The former Massachusetts governor was busy setting about the work of campaigning for the presidency.

"To my knowledge, there were no conversations between Gov. Romney and anyone about cabinet positions," said Leavitt, who explained that he opted to exercise tight control of these deliberations once campaign outsiders sought information about the process. "The number of people who knew whose names were on the pared-down lists was probably about four people."

Romney tapped Leavitt at a point in the election cycle that was comparable to Obama’s selection of John Podesta to lead his transition project four years earlier. Podesta served as White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton.

“The president asked me to do that in June after Sen. (Hillary) Clinton dropped out of the race, and I began organizing that with a group of people in early July. We had a fairly elaborate process working by late summer,” Podesta said of his experience. “By the time Election Day happened, we were fully engaged in the process of thinking through both the security transition and the economic crisis in fall of that year.”

Like much of Romney’s campaign, the transition team folded following his loss on Nov. 6. But future nominees — Democratic or Republican — might be well-served to study the work of the “Romney Readiness Project.”

Because of term limits, America will have a new president in 2016, and a transition of some kind will be necessary.

“I think it's highly appropriate,” Podesta said of the new transition process sanctioned by Congress. “It normalizes the transition, so you don't get all the political garbage about 'measuring the drapes.' It's a very complicated process, and having been on both ends of it, I think it's very important for the country to make it as seamless and professional as possible.”

Said Leavitt of the experience enabled by the new law: "One of the best things the law did was that it created an expectation that people would plan. Because you can't just become president of the United States in 77 days, and do it well."

MADISON, WIS. -- Mitt Romney made a serious play here – not surprising, given his running mate was a native son and the state recently re-affirmed its support of its Republican governor in a recall election. 

But despite the Paul Ryan appearances and the millions spent in third-party ads, the state still proved elusive – one reason, perhaps, that became apparent just hours after polls closed in that contentious June recall.

Related: Romney never overcame bailout opposition

Of the 53 percent of voters who supported Gov. Scott Walker over Tom Barrett, who opposed the governor’s curbs on collective bargaining, 18 percent said they’d still vote for President Barack Obama over Romney.

And that was among the 2.5 million people that voted in the recall – half a million less than voted Tuesday for president. 

“Even if the electorate didn’t grow at all, Republicans needed to worry,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said, “because that’s enough of a flip to make the state go for Obama.” 

In a state where voters take pride in voting for the person, not the party, Burden said that some voters felt similarly about Obama and Walker. 

“They’re both incumbents, they’re both presiding over a kind of mediocre economy... But in both cases, voters are willing to give the incumbent credit and give them time to finish the job,” Burden said. 

Plus, the fact that the Obama campaign turned out the voters they needed to put them over the edge, even if the resulting 53-46 percent result was far less than Obama’s 14-point margin in 2008. 

In the important blue counties of Racine and Milwaukee, Obama got 51.4 percent and 67 percent of the vote respectively. As with elsewhere in the country, demographics were a key part of his victories there: Milwaukee County’s population is 27 percent African American, versus 6.5 percent of people statewide; Racine's is 11.5 percent. 

Steven Senne / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets people during a campaign stop at a Cousins Subs fast food restaurant, in Waukesha, Wis., Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

But while Obama won decisively here, Republicans said they are far from ready to cede this perennial purple state to the Democrats. 

“I think we have a fantastic ground game and we’ll continue to grow,” said Wisconsin Republican party spokesman Nathan Conrad. 

Republicans did win the super-swingy Brown County, which voted Obama in 2008, Walker for governor in 2010 and 2012, and gave Romney a narrow 50.4- 48.5 percent win Tuesday night. Green Bay, located in Brown County’s Fox Valley, is a particularly important bellwether, given its high concentration of white male working-class voters who frequently swing between parties. 

But the margins there were meaningful – smaller than they had to be in order for Walker to win, some Republicans conceded. 

Another bright spot for Republicans in Wisconsin was in the statehouse - Wednesday morning Scott Walker was quick to note that his party eked out a new 17-15 majority in the state Senate, the body’s third party switch in two years after it went to the Democrats during the recall. 

“What that tells me is that voters in this state are independent. They listen race by race to what the candidates have to offer,” Walker said to reporters Wednesday in Milwaukee.

And that is one of the reasons this state will continue to be a key battleground in future presidential races, Burden, the University of Wisconsin professor, said. 

“It’s just volatile enough and has just enough electoral votes that neither party really wants to walk away from it,” he said. 

JANESVILLE, Wisc. -- With just a few hours to go before polls close and the 2012 election draws to a close, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is optimistic Mitt Romney will become the next president of the United States.

Eric Thayer / Reuters

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife Janna vote during the U.S. Presidential election accompanied by their children Charlie, Sam and Liza in Janesville, Wisconsin November 6, 2012.

Asked if the GOP ticket would win Tuesday, Ryan told reporters after casting his ballot: "I think we are, I feel good about it."
The Wisconsin congressman and his wife, Janna, voted at the Hedberg Library in their hometown of Janesville. Ryan’s three children -- Liza, Charlie, and Sam -- joined their parents as well.

Who did Ryan vote for?

"It'll be suspenseful," the congressman, wearing a suit, joked with reporters as he walked into the library.

"It felt good waking up in my hometown,” Ryan said after submitting his ballot. “It felt good coming to this neighborhood I grew up in. I went to junior high about 60 yards that way. So it’s great to be here in my hometown. It’s great to vote and we’re really excited."

Ryan will head to the battleground states of Ohio and Virginia before heading to the election night party in Boston this evening.