President to tout Obamacare benefits for women as Republicans plan repeal vote

Ahead of House Republicans' planned vote next week on whether to repeal the president's health care law, President Barack Obama on Friday will publicly tout what the White House views to be the law's positive impacts on women.

Obama is scheduled to issue a public statement on the "Affordable Care Act" known as "Obamacare" and his remarks will be linked to the upcoming Mother's Day holiday, according to a White House official. The official said the law has extinguished the possibility of children being denied health insurance coverage, created more access for women to preventative services such as mammograms and birth control, and enabled older children to remain on their parents' insurance-- points that could be included in the president's statement.

The president's remarks Friday are scheduled for 2:40 p.m. in the East Room and will be attended by representatives from women's organizations, according to the official. And they will help set up the partisan conversation that will occur next week surrounding a planned repeal vote staged by House Republicans.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Wednesday vowed to hold a vote next week to repeal Obamacare in full. The move is largely political theater but it allows opponents of the law-- especially freshman lawmakers-- to publicly record their opposition.

Republicans have held dozens of votes to repeal all or part of the president's health care law since it passed in 2010 but have been unsuccessful. Even if a repeal passed the House, the effort would die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

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President to tout Obamacare benefits for women as Republicans plan repeal vote

Ahead of House Republicans' planned vote next week on whether to repeal the president's health care law, President Barack Obama on Friday will publicly tout what the White House views to be the law's positive impacts on women.

Obama is scheduled to issue a public statement on the "Affordable Care Act" known as "Obamacare" and his remarks will be linked to the upcoming Mother's Day holiday, according to a White House official. The official said the law has extinguished the possibility of children being denied health insurance coverage, created more access for women to preventative services such as mammograms and birth control, and enabled older children to remain on their parents' insurance-- points that could be included in the president's statement.

The president's remarks Friday are scheduled for 2:40 p.m. in the East Room and will be attended by representatives from women's organizations, according to the official. And they will help set up the partisan conversation that will occur next week surrounding a planned repeal vote staged by House Republicans.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Wednesday vowed to hold a vote next week to repeal Obamacare in full. The move is largely political theater but it allows opponents of the law-- especially freshman lawmakers-- to publicly record their opposition.

Republicans have held dozens of votes to repeal all or part of the president's health care law since it passed in 2010 but have been unsuccessful. Even if a repeal passed the House, the effort would die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

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Can Republicans win John Kerry's Senate seat?

If Gabriel Gomez upsets Democrat Ed Markey, he'll be the first Republican to do so since, well, Scott Brown

Rep. Ed Markey (D) and businessman Gabriel Gomez (R) handily won their respective primaries in Massachusetts on Tuesday. But as the veteran Democratic lawmaker and Navy SEAL veteran prepare for a two-month dash to the June 25 special election to fill Secretary of State John Kerry's Senate seat, a third name is hanging over the race like a beacon of hope (for Gomez) or warning signal (for Markey).

Will Gomez "be the next Scott Brown?" ask Martin Finucane and Michael Levenson in The Boston Globe — a question being posed by just about every political handicapper and operative in the country. Brown, a little-known GOP state lawmaker, won a 2010 special election for U.S. Senate in an upset over Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (D). Republicans hope Gomez, a political neophyte with an attractive face and personal story, is able to capture the same coalition of Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats who pushed Brown to victory.

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Markey starts out the favorite in a state where Democrats hold a strong voter-registration edge and the national Republican Party is pretty unpopular. But "Democrats have good reason to be worried," says Shoshana Weissmann at PolicyMic. About half of Massachusetts' registered voters are independents, and "Gomez has substantial appeal that transcends party." His parents are Colombian immigrants, so Gomez didn't learn English until kindergarten, and his résumé — Navy pilot and SEAL officer, Harvard MBA, millionaire private-equity investor — and socially moderate positions make him the kind of Republican "who can be elected with ease in a blue state." Just ask Scott Brown.

Brown, of course, lost his bid to serve a full term last November. And as political forecaster Larry Sabato notes:

Dozens tell me Gomez is next Scott Brown. By my count since '10, this makes Gomez 35th next Scott Brown.

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— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) May 1, 2013

Democrats would have been better off choosing Markey's more conservative rival, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), says Aaron Goldstein at The American Spectator. And Gomez's enviable attributes — "handsome, youthful, Hispanic, and bilingual," plus private-sector success — make him "a viable candidate." Still, Gomez has very long odds:

The chances of Gomez becoming the second coming of Scott Brown are slim. The fact that Brown is thinking of running for office in New Hampshire tells you that even he doesn't think there's going to be a second coming for him in the Bay State. Also Markey is no Martha Coakley. Unless Markey says or does something absolutely stupid, he will most likely become Massachusetts' next senator. [American Spectator]

Political "inexpertise can become a political boon, especially on the Republican side," says Charlie Pierce at Esquire. But "Gomez isn't quite the political naif that he's selling to the Commonwealth." In the 2012 election, he cut an ad for "the group of SEALS who accused the president of using the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed for crass political purposes." And he wrote a letter asking Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) to appoint him to the vacant Senate seat when Kerry resigned. "Guess what, Gabriel? You're a politician."

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With Markey's 36 years in the House, though, this will fundamentally be "a classic outsider versus career politician race," The Cook Report's Jennifer Duffy tells Go Local Worcester. Gomez will work hard to convince voters that he's an independent voice, not a conservative Republican, and that Markey is a "creature of a dysfunctional Congress." Markey will tout his accomplishments and argue that Gomez is "an ideological chameleon, and thus cannot be trusted." All things considered, Gomez is the underdog, and "I don't intend to change the rating from where it is now — Solid Democrat.

In hindsight, "Scott Brown's win was like lightning in a bottle," a mixture of a backlash against Democrats and ObamaCare plus damaging gaffes by the Democrat, Coakley, says Jessica Taylor at MSNBC. But it's not all bad news for Republicans.

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If nothing else, showcasing Gomez gives them a top candidate with a profile they badly need to replicate across the country — a young, Hispanic moderate.... Even if Gomez... ultimately does fall short, if he runs an impressive campaign, expect his name to pop up for other offices in the Bay State — maybe even a 2014 rematch with Markey, when the seat is regularly scheduled to be up. For Republicans, boosting Gomez may be a win-win even if it's not a win at the ballot box on June 25. [MSNBC]

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Other stories from this section:

• Why I could never be a liberal
• Republicans struggle to find decent Senate candidates
• Passive-aggressive Twitter fight of the day

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Magazine releases recording of senior Republican's campaign meeting

By Steve Holland and David Ingram

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign said on Tuesday it has asked the FBI to investigate how a campaign strategy meeting was recorded in which ways to attack a potential rival, actress Ashley Judd, were reportedly discussed.

The magazine, Mother Jones, said it had obtained a recording of the meeting and that McConnell and his aides discussed criticizing Judd "for her past struggles with depression and her religious views."

Judd has since ruled out running against McConnell in 2014.

Mother Jones, which has a liberal slant, reported that at the February 2 meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, McConnell and his aides discussed how to attack Judd.

McConnell's campaign did not dispute the authenticity of the recording. "We've always said the Left would stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters are above and beyond," the McConnell campaign statement said.

McConnell's campaign said it is working with the FBI and at the request of the FBI had notified the U.S. attorney's office in Louisville about the recordings.

"Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell's campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished presumably will be the subject of a criminal investigation," McConnell's campaign said.

Mother Jones was the magazine that obtained a recording of a fund-raising speech by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last year in which Romney said 47 percent of Americans were dependent on government and unlikely to vote for him. When disclosed, the recording dealt Romney a damaging blow.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Louisville declined to comment on the existence of an investigation. An FBI spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One thing any investigation would focus on is whether any law was in fact broken. Federal law and the law in many states prohibit the intercept of oral communication, but that might not apply depending on who made the recording and how.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Fred Barbash and Jackie Frank)

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Obama tries to woo Republicans with cuts in budget

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will offer cuts to Social Security and other entitlement programs in a budget proposal aimed at swaying Republicans to compromise on a deficit reduction deal to put the country's finances on a sounder footing, a senior administration official said on Friday.

The president will offer to apply a less generous measure of inflation to calculate cost-of-living increases, the official said on condition of anonymity. That change would result in lower payments to some beneficiaries of the Social Security program for retirees.

Obama would agree to cuts to other so-called entitlement programs, the official said.

But the president will only accept these spending cuts if congressional Republicans, for their part, agree to higher taxes, the official added. The president's budget proposal, due to be laid out in full on Wednesday, would cut the deficit by $1.8 trillion over ten years, the aide said.

(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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