‘Compromise’ no longer a dirty word for Republicans

>>> mitt romney , the republican's party 's posture seems to have altered and become possibly a bit more plaqueble. we've seen prominent republicans open themselves up to some kind of compromise. they went ahead with a fiscal curve deal and let tax rates rise on top incomes. they extended the debt limit. they agreed to $50 billion in sandy relief after the president initially asked for $60 billion. and the so-called gang of 8's proposal for comprehensive immigration reform looks a lot like the plan the president put forth. now, one of the reason for changes is that politics have changed. the president is more popular than he's been in some time while the public has a negative view of the republican party . president obama has a 60% approval rating, while former secretary of state collin powell recently reminded him party of unfavorablety.

>> i realized how are we going to win the next election?

>> so is the republican party looking at a full fledged change? more concerned with principal than electoral viability or is this just textical change in the direction? seeming weary of drawing any definitive conclusion saying, quote, the republican party is undergoing a still early effort at re-examining what their agenda is and what they care about. i think there is still shock on the part of some in the party that i won re-election. it's brought self-examination among some in the party , but that hasn't gone to the party as a whole yet. michelle, dillon glenn, former special assistant to president george w. bush , now a managing director of gugenheim partners. start with the thesis, do you buy the basic thing that we've seen as a shift in the institutional behavior in the republican party ?

>> did you see the story in the "new york times" today about karl rove 's new pact that's basically devoted to fighting the tea party . that to me shows you at least see a big institutional shift among the republican establishment or the republican establishment sort of strikes pack.

>> yeah. let me read from that. this is a report saying looking to protect senate races from tea party candidates. you can count i think six or seven winnable races in the last two cycles that have been booted away. i remember watching on election night a matching mitch mcconnell tloes throwing his bourbon across the room because he keeps being denied a short at majority leader because you've had people like christine o'donnell and todd akin and all these people. the biggest done yours of the republican party are looking to protect challenges by far right conservatives and tea party enthusiasts who republicans work could compromise the party 's efforts to win control of the senate.

>> you basically have karl rove and all these donors working to head off the nomination of steve king .

>> steve king being extremely far right, outspoken republican congress person from --

>> right. as kind of the it in certain ways as the tea party base of the party . but, you know, they've tried some paths, right? they've tried to mobilize in the past. todd achin was not the candidate of the republican establishment and they put a lot of money into his challengers. to me, the problems that you have, the challenge at the institutional level of the republican party . but i'm wondering -- and you're much more in touch with them than i am -- whether there's any sense of a change in voters at the republican base.

>> you see the identification with the tea party among americans is just going down and down and down. and i think this has a lot to do with what i think you'll be talking about later, the economy is starting to rebound. people are slowly starting to get back into work. not looking dismal. they're not seeing the emergency measures for the economy like t.a.r.p. or the major stimulus and that has lowered the temperature on the right. in 2010 and 2011 , when you looked at the republican party and when the republican party looked at itself, they thought, we are facing a permanent resolution on the right where if we don't vote this way, there will be another tea party challenger and another tea party challenger. although these efforts like karl rove 's are getting started now, they're finding out there isn't an endless bench of tea party candidates that can win primaries. that has loosened it up for them to make a little bit of room on immigration reform .

>> these election res important. they matter. and i think that republicans, you know, want to win senate seats. they want to win the presidency.

>> political science 101, a party exit exists to get elected, right?

>> but the question is, they've wanted that for a while. the question is whether they can get primary voters to go along with them, right?

>> i don't know. i've been around it for a while. these things tend to be typical. my sense is the party is about ideas and having the right people express those ideas. i think you'll see, you know, the new karl rove group, as you will, the new conservative party influence recruitment of candidates that speak across -- you know, that appeal to a broader group of people.

>> right.

>> but the point here, i think there's sort of three things. you mentioned this. there's people in candidate recruitment, right? which is like don't recruit people who say wildly offensive things about rape, that is a new principle for candidate recruitment. then there's the ideal center of where the party is and then there's the tactical choices made about cooperation.

>> do you think there's changes at one and three, but not a lot of changes at two.

>> so i want to talk about which of those three things are changing after we take this break. ladybug body