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.”

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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

Updated at 8:30pm ET TAMPA, Fla. — Tropical Storm Isaac has forced Gulf State governors to delay or possibly abandon their trips to the Republican convention. 

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have said that, at a minimum, they will be delaying their trips to Tampa. 

On Sunday Jindal issued a statement noting that a hurricane watch is in effect for the New Orleans metro area and the parishes adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain. He urged the people in that area to ensure that they had an evacuation plan in place, as well plenty of water, non-perishable food items, and other essentials they may need.

Earlier Sunday, Kyle Plotkin, Jindal's communications director, told NBC News that the governor would not leave people in his state in "peril."
"The Governor was slated to speak at the convention in 2008 when (Hurricane) Gustav hit, he not only didn’t speak, he didn’t even go.  He will certainly not leave the state if our people are in peril," Plotkin said in an email.

Apart from the Gulf State governors, the prominent Republicans who won’t be in Tampa are primarily party leaders of the past, as well as one failed GOP presidential hopeful, and a few GOP Senate contenders.

Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, have both decided to not attend the convention, but former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is scheduled to be there and has been given a featured speaking spot on Wednesday night.

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National conventions are partly designed to honor those who have brought the party victory in the past. Ronald Reagan gave seven GOP convention addresses, the first of them as an unsuccessful presidential contender in 1968, asking the delegates to make Richard Nixon’s nomination unanimous, and the last of them his farewell at 1992 event in Houston, one of the most poignant convention performances of the television era.

In that 1992 farewell, Reagan reminded delegates of the creed that still defines Republicans today: “We believe that no power of government is as formidable a force for good as the creativity and entrepreneurial drive of the American people.”

But not all ex-presidents are equal in terms of their stature after leaving office.

When Reagan left office, 63 percent of Americans approved of his performance as president. But when George W. Bush left office in 2009, his Gallup approval rating was only 34 percent. So it’s hardly surprising that Bush won’t be at the Tampa convention. Former Vice President Dick Cheney will also not be attending.

The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be another Tampa non-attendee, but the man who chose her to be his running mate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, is also slated to be speaking at the convention on Wednesday night.

Another Tampa absentee will be former ambassador to China and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, whose bid for the Republican nomination found little support among primary voters.

At least four GOP Senate candidates will be skipping the convention: Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri – whom party leaders are pressuring to exit the race after his inflammatory rape comments -- New Mexico’s Heather Wilson, Virginia’s George Allen and Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg. All four are in what are likely to be competitive races, although Akin’s future as a candidate remains uncertain.

Another Republican Senate candidate in a competitive race, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, will be spending one day at the Tampa convention.

NBC's Jamie Novogrod contributed reporting.

Before there was the controversial Sarah Palin pick in 2008, there was Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern’s ill-fated selection in 1972. The Eagleton affair, in fact, ultimately changed how vice-presidential running mates are now made.

With political watchers on veepstakes alert for Mitt Romney’s eventual VP pick, below a mini-documentary on the Eagleton affair.

A little backstory: When McGovern arrived at the Democratic convention in Miami during the summer of '72, his campaign priority was to fend off rival Hubert Humphrey's last-ditch attempt to win the nomination through an obscure rule change. Picking a running mate was relegated to the backburner. After officially gaining the nod, McGovern was left with only an hour and a half to choose a No. 2 -- and he hastily settled on Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-MO), a man with whom McGovern had only spoken twice.

"Vetting" the candidate was an afterthought, a decision that came to exemplify VP selection gone bad.  

Nati Harnik / Associated Press

Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer applauds her supporters with her husband Bruce Fischer, left, at her election party May 15 in Lincoln, Neb.

Updated 11:20 p.m. — Insurgent Republican candidate Deb Fischer bested two rivals with superior financing and organizations to win the Republican Senate nomination in Nebraska on Tuesday. 

Fischer earned the right to face former Sen. Bob Kerrey in a Senate race seen as crucial to Republicans' chances of retaking the Senate next year. She and Kerrey will battle to succeed the retiring centrist Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson. 

Fischer bested her two Republican rivals, state Attorney General Jon Bruning and Don Stenberg, according to Associated Press projections. Bruning had enjoyed establishment support and had raised the most money, while Stenberg, who'd previously run for the Senate three times before, had worked to consolidate support from conservatives. 

A state senator who heads the Nebraska legislature's transportation committee, Fischer made a late charge for the nomination aided by a nearly yearlong fight between Bruning and Stenberg. 

Adding to that momentum was former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who on Monday released a letter in support of Fischer.

Romney wins Nebraska primary

“We admire your conservative principles and know that you will not go to Washington to amass great wealth or power. You will go to Washington to serve the people of Nebraska, protect our Constitution and work for common sense solutions to help restore America,” wrote Palin, who made a habit of backing insurgent and Tea Party Senate candidates in 2010, often shortly before Election Day.

Fischer won't face a cakewalk on her way to Washington, though. Democrats tapped former Sen. Bob Kerrey, who served two terms representing Nebraska before becoming president of The New School in New York City, to succeed Nelson.

But Republicans are optimistic that they can paint Kerrey, a Vietnam War hero who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, as an out-of-touch liberal. Kerrey, for instance, said last week that he also supports same-sex marriage in light of President Barack Obama’s similar pronouncement – a position that might not prove popular with Nebraskans come November.

Fischer has been the least well-funded of the candidates, and her small organization relative to her two primary challengers could prompt more assistance from the national Republican Party.

Moreover, were Fischer to become Republicans’ candidate, she would be facing statewide exposure for the first time, and against a seasoned political figure like Kerrey.

Republicans' chances of winning the Senate could be diminished, though, if they fail to win over Nebraska. While Democrats will play defense this fall in more Senate seats than the GOP, Republican candidates have struggled to catch fire in some states that had been previously seen as opportunities, narrowing the party's pathway to a majority.

While Fischer's victory would seem at first glance to fall along the fault lines in 2010 Senate primaries, which pitted less-experienced conservative insurgents against establishment-backed Republicans, the three-way primary in Nebraska made for a more complex breakdown in political loyalties. 

Bruning had raised the most money and developed the most extensive organization. Both Rick Santorum, the erstwhile presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania senator, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had endorsed Bruning, giving him particular heft among the state’s social conservatives.

Stenberg, who had hoping the fourth time was a charm in his bid to win a Senate seat, won the backing of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a conservative kingmaker in primary races, along with the fiscally conservative Club for Growth.

Both Bruning and Stenberg had been fighting intensely in the GOP primary for much of the past year, aided in part by outside groups who have assisted each candidate.

Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Arizona Sen. John McCain and his vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wave at a campaign rally at Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania on October 28, 2008.

The Republican Party’s 2008 experiment with Sarah Palin looms over Mitt Romney as he begins pivoting to the general election and looks to select a running mate. His choice of a vice presidential candidate likely won’t be made known for months, but the preliminary deliberations over who might round out the GOP ticket this fall are likely to have already begun.

And it’s impossible to separate that process from John McCain’s selection of Palin, then the governor of Alaska, as his running mate. Palin achieved her initial purpose of exciting conservative voters, but her selection eventually created as many problems as it solved. She excited the conservative base and shook up the race, but also turned off independents and raised questions about whether she was equipped to serve at that level of office.

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That experience led former White House chief of staff John E. Sununu – a former governor of New Hampshire who’s become one of Romney’s top surrogates – to warn Monday in the Boston Globe: “In the end, there is only one imperative: don’t blow it.”

The Romney campaign insists that it continues to focus on winning the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination, and not the machinations behind the general election.

But the Romney campaign is likely to have already assembled a private list of about 20 to 30 names that will be winnowed down to the eventual short list of candidates, said Ted Frank, a lawyer by trade who was part of McCain’s vetting team in 2008.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks on day three of the Republican National Convention at the Xcel Energy Center on September 3, 2008 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Selecting a vice president traditionally hinges on some combination of three criteria: whether the running mate could serve as vice president, a comfort level between the nominee and their No. 2, and whether the pick serves politically. How campaigns balance those criteria differ from cycle-to-cycle, but Romney’s most pressing political considerations include expanding the electoral map and closing the gap with conservatives – with whom he’s struggled during the primary.

“I think Team Romney will be torn by going with a conventional pick, most likely [Ohio Sen. Rob] Portman, or an outside-the-box pick with a Hispanic,” said Mark McKinnon, a political adviser to President George W. Bush.

The need to win back Latino voters, who have favored President Barack Obama over Romney in recent polls, has fueled speculation about whether the Republican might tap Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, as his vice presidential pick.

“They clearly don't want the pick to appear political, at the same time their hole is so deep with Hispanics it's hard to imagine how Republicans can win without significantly addressing the problem,” McKinnon said. “And a Hispanic VP would be best way to fix it – maybe the only way.”

But Rubio and many of the other names popularly included on reporters’ short lists of vice presidential candidates – like Palin before them – either have been on the job for just a few years, or lack the experience of having previously gone through the vetting process and campaigning on the national level.

“I think the problem with being thrust into the limelight is going to be true of any candidate who hasn't been through a national campaign,” said Frank. “Just optically, they're going to want to avoid certain comparisons [with Palin], because it will distract from the message.”

That makes for a difficult choice in the Romney camp. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have each endured the scrutiny of the presidential primary, but their relationship with Romney has been nothing if not acrimonious. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has acted as a Romney surrogate since ending his own bid for the GOP nomination last August, but he’s regarded as a relatively bland (if safe) pick.

Palin herself urged Romney to go for an outside-the-box pick during a Tuesday interview on NBC’s TODAY.

“I would say it doesn't matter if that person has national-level experience or not. They're going to get clobbered by the lamestream media who don't like the conservative message,” she said. “What I would advise Mitt Romney or whomever the nominee would be is, is don't necessarily play it safe and do just what the GOP establishment expects them to do.”

That type of choice would risk a re-hash of the 2008 experience, which saw the vice presidential pick struggle in getting up-to-speed on issues, and sometimes departing from the presidential candidate’s script. A way to defuse that might be to roll out a running mate well before the August Republican National Convention in order to allow media scrutiny of the pick, and put any negative coverage behind the campaign.

Frank argued that Romney’s selection will ultimately come down to the candidate himself, in terms of what qualities he values in a running mate and the risks he’s willing to incur in making his choice.

“It all comes back to the selection process. It's really going to vary from campaign to campaign, in terms of what gets someone stricken from the list,” he said. “Everyone has costs and benefits. You're looking at everything they've done, their resume, their list of accomplishments and controversies.”

AshleyMadison.com

New ad campaign by adult dating website AshleyMadison.com features presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich.

Celebrity endorsements are nothing new in the world of advertising, but one dating website is running an ad campaign that probably isn’t such welcome publicity to the famous faces involved.

AshleyMadison.com, which hooks up married people with people they're not married to, mounted a billboard advertisement in Pennsylvania last week featuring Republican presidential hopeful and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

The billboard depicts a frowning, solemn shot of Gingrich, who is holding up one finger as if scolding someone. In reference to Gingrich’s two marriages that ended in divorce due to his admitted infidelities, the billboard features the slogan: “Faithful Republican…Unfaithful Husband. Welcome to the Ashley Madison.com era.”

Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said the politician’s camp had no comment on the ad.

Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison said the billboard is meant to illustrate that, as a contender for political office, Gingrich should only be judged on his abilities as a politician, and shouldn’t be faulted for his personal indiscretions.

“We continue to take the notion that politicians who suffer in their personal lives … are people who are not fit to run our country,” said Biderman. “We have to stop this very unhealthy notion in the political arena in general that somehow these personal choices lead to character flaws.”

Some may view Biderman’s point as a thinly veiled excuse to paste a famous face on an advertisement for a website that’s taken a lot of heat for encouraging extramarital affairs. After all, this isn’t the first celebrity — or politician-themed ad for the company. It has run ads featuring California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, president Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and King Juan Carlos I of Spain, all of whom have been accused of or have admitted to cheating on their spouses.

Biderman said Ashley Madison doesn’t seek permission from politicians to use their images in advertisements, but he did receive an "ambiguous" letter from the office of King Juan Carlos I, expressing the monarch's displeasure with it, so it was taken down. And he said that the billboard operator who posted the Berlusconi ad was threatened within 24 hours of mounting it, so that ad was removed, too.

According to Biderman (who said he himself has been happily married for eight years), the whole idea to run advertisements featuring politicians started when Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught dallying with a call girl. So Ashley Madison ran a full-page ad in the New York Post, saying Spitzer could have avoided getting caught if he’d instead used the site to have an affair. 

From there, Ashley Madison began running a rash of advertisements about politicians, and on its website maintains a list of prominent politicians who have cheated on their spouses. Who might be the next one to be spotlighted in an Ashley Madison ad? “There’s always somebody,” Biderman said. “I can guarantee somebody will pop up."

Ashley Madison also recently reached out to Republican presidential ex-candidate Herman Cain, offering him a job at the company and a $400,000 a year paycheck to be a brand ambassador of sorts. Cain hasn’t responded to the request. Biderman said he’s even more interested in working with Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who has been accused of cheating on her husband but has denied the charges.

No matter, said Biderman, who added, “Nobody’s perfect. We’re not genetically engineered to be monogamous."

Related story: At Ashley Madison, infidelity is alive and profitable