First Read from NBC News: If Obama is having a bad run, just look at the House GOP – Wednesday, 18 September 2013

If Obama has been having a bad run, just look at the House GOP… Threat of government shutdown intensifies… Boehner, for now, has no way out… And the White House isn’t blinking… Obama: Blame Boehner for stalled immigration bill… A further look at our NBC/WSJ poll: Why a status-quo 2014 is likely… Poll: McAuliffe holds a slight lead over Cuccinelli, but look at those fav/unfavs… And another poll: De Blasio has HUGE lead over Lhota.

*** If Obama is having a bad run, just look at the House GOP: As rough a stretch as President Obama and his team have had over the last couple of weeks (something we chronicled extensively yesterday), they have one thing going for them right now: House Republicans are in disarray, increasing the likelihood that the federal government could shut down. “The threat of a government shutdown intensified Tuesday as House Republican leaders moved toward stripping funding from President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative and setting up a stalemate with the Democratic Senate,” the Washington Post says. “House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had hoped to keep the government open past Sept. 30 with relatively little fuss. But roughly 40 conservatives revolted. After a strategy session Tuesday, Boehner and his leadership team were being pushed into a more confrontational strategy that would fund the government into the new fiscal year only if Democrats agreed to undermine Obama’s signature legislative achievement.” We’ll repeat that again: The effort only would fund the government if the health-care law is defunded. NBC’s Frank Thorp adds that if House Republicans agree on this strategy, they could vote on it as soon as Friday.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, walks to join GOP House members for a caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013.

*** No way out: To Boehner’s credit, he has tried to find a way out this situation — like originally proposing a two-piece legislative tactic that would have essentially separated the defunding-Obamacare provision from the larger continuing resolution. But here is the situation Congress now faces: 1) We’re two weeks away from when the federal government runs out of funding… 2) Both the House and Senate passed budgets, but the GOP side never appointed conferees… And 3) the appropriations process is dead (example: the THUD bill that got pulled from the floor). In other words, Congress is broken, and it’s hard to find a way out when something is broken. On top of all of his, what we’re talking about is a simple solution to keep the government open for a few months to buy more time. Congress can’t figure out a two-month extension??? So if it’s this hard to find a way to keep the government funded for a few months, how are they supposed to figure out debt ceiling or sequestration? Again, this is not a debate about implementing an actual budget. This is a struggle over a simple continuation of current policy.

*** White House isn’t blinking: Given this disarray, the White House isn’t blinking, and it isn’t going to extend a helping hand. (Its logic: If House Republicans are willing to shut down the government over Obamacare, there’s nothing they can do to help.) And here’s something additional we have noticed: As Washington piles on Obama — the New York Times, Politico, and Maureen Dowd are the latest to jump on — the president appears to be in a fiery mood. If he has regrets over how he and his team have handled the last few weeks, he’s not letting it show publicly. An example from yesterday: In an interview, Telemundo’s Jose Diaz Balart asked Obama if the 52% of Americans (per the NBC/WSJ poll) who believe the health-care law will raise their costs are wrong, Obama answered, “They are. I mean, let’s look at the facts. You know, already the Affordable Care Act is providing health insurance to young people who didn’t have it before ’cause they could stay on their parents’ plan. Already seniors are getting billions of dollars in discounts on their prescription drugs.” In that same interview, he also showed no signs of agreeing with his critics that he was wrong in going ahead with his planned political speech during the Navy Yard shooting investigation.

*** Obama blames Boehner for the stall with immigration bill: Also in that Telemundo interview, Obama said the only thing stopping comprehensive immigration reform from becoming law is House Speaker John Boehner, NBC’s Carrie Dann notes. “This is really a question that should be directed to Mr. John Boehner.  What’s stopping him from going ahead and calling that bill?” Obama said, adding that the House Speaker “shouldn’t be afraid of majority opinion on this thing.”  Obama added., “There’s a path to get this done, and that’s through Congress,” he said.  “And right now, everybody should be focused on making sure that that bill that’s already passed out of the Senate hits the floor of the House of Representatives.” Boehner’s office responded to the president’s remarks with this statement:  “If immigration reform is going to work, it is essential that we have the confidence of the American people that it’s done the right way. That means a deliberate, step-by-step approach, not another massive Obamacare-style bill that people don’t understand.”

*** Why a status-quo 2014 is likely: Over the past 20 years, our NBC/WSJ poll has been pretty predictive if one party was going to achieve BIG gains in the House. When Republicans have any significant lead in the poll’s congressional-preference question (like they did in 1994 and 2006), they’ve picked up 50-60 House seats. When Democrats have a double-digit lead on the generic ballot (like they did in 2006 and 2008), they’ve netted 20-30 seats. And when Democrats have a lead in the small single digits (like they did in ’96, ’98, ’00, ’02, ’04, and ’12), only a handful of House seats changed hands between the two parties. So more than a year until Election Day 2014, where do things stand? The merged data in our NBC/WSJ for all of 2013 show Democrats with a three-point lead, 46%-43% — which means 2014 could be shaping up to be a status-quo election. This is something that political analyst Charlie Cook touched on earlier this week. “At the very least, Americans might want to prepare themselves for Washington to muddle along for the next three years until the 2016 election,” Cook wrote. But how could this change….?

*** Why Democrats should be worried: When you compare the 2013 merged data (so far) with the merged NBC/WSJ data from 2010 and 2012, Republicans have some advantages. Core Republicans, McCain/Romney voters, Tea Party supporters, white independents, and seniors are all more Republican-leaning than they were in 2010 and 2012. So they’re more united than ever. What’s more, President Obama has seen a steady erosion in his poll numbers — especially among Democrats — which is never good for the party holding the White House in midterm elections. And yet…

*** Why Republicans should be worried: There’s a one-word answer here: women. Right now, the merged data from our NBC/WSJ polls show that women are MORE Democratic leaning in 2013 (51%-36%) than they were in 2010 (47%-41%) or 2012 (51%-37%). Ditto white women — who actually leaned GOP in 2010 and 2012, but now barely lean Democratic. As 2012 proved, if Republicans are losing women by double digits, they’re in trouble. Then again, Republicans still held on to control of the House after 2012… But if they do NOT grab control of the Senate, it may very well be thanks to their poor showing with female voters.

*** Poll: McAuliffe holds slight lead over Cuccinelli, but look at those fav/unfavs: A month and a half before Election Day, new Quinnipiac poll shows Terry McAuliffe (D) with a slight three-point lead over Ken Cuccinelli among likely voters (R) in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, 44%-41%, with Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis getting 7% (which will likely come down). Despite that close margin, here’s what you need to know about the race: Cuccinelli’s fav/unfav rating is upside down (34%-51%), versus McAuliffe’s even rating (38%-38%). Voters might not be happy with either candidate, but they’re MUCH unhappier about Cuccinelli. The Cuccinelli camp responds to the poll: “This race is within the margin of error, which we always knew was the case. As voters learn more about Ken Cuccinelli’s record of fighting for Virginia and Terry McAuliffe’s record of putting himself first at the expense of workers, they are going side with the attorney general.”

*** Another poll: De Blasio with HUGE lead over Lhota: And speaking of polls, Democrat Bill de Blasio leads Republican Joe Lhota by 43 points, 65%-22%, in the race for New York mayor, according to an NBC4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

*** Wednesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include Mother Jones’ David Corn, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN).

*** Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews Sen. Jon Tester, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Sr. Associate Karim Sadjadpour, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Ruth Marcus and NBC’s Pete Williams and Leanne Gregg.

*** Wednesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Rep. Jackie Speier, missing and exploited children advocate and journalist Angeline Hartmann on the GA amber alert, and writer/producer Tonya Lewis Lee on her new movie The Waltons Go To Birmingham.

“Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.” No word on who’s Mr. T in this analogy… “A struggling President Obama is calling for help from members of his first-term A-Team, who have left the White House for other jobs,” The Hill writes. “With his poll numbers falling and his second-term floundering so far, Obama has sought help from the former aides who helped catapult him to the presidency.”

The Washington Post: “President Obama on Tuesday ruled out using his executive authority to freeze deportations for most of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, saying such a move would violate federal law. During an interview at the White House with Telemundo, the Spanish-language television network, Obama defended his decision last summer to defer the deportations of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country illegally by their parents as children. The legal rationale in that case, he said, was to allow federal agencies to devote more time and resources to high-priority immigration cases such as those involving people with multiple criminal convictions. But he said that expanding that deferment program beyond the young people it now covers ‘would be ignoring the law in a way that would be very difficult to defend legally.’”

Here’s the interview on Telemundo.

“For President Barack Obama, an embarrassing diplomatic rebuke by Brazil has compounded an already troublesome stretch for the White House both at home and abroad,” AP writes, adding, “Rousseff’s decision deepened the global fallout for Obama from revelations about National Security Agency surveillance programs, which have also angered many Americans. The announcement also came amid criticism of Obama’s public shifting over the threat of U.S. military action against Syria. Some foreign policy analysts say such issues raise questions about Obama’s standing around the world.”

The documents revealed by Edward Snowden show the U.S. intercepted communications between Rouseff and that the NSA hacked computer network of Brazil’s largest oil company.

And this: “President Obama’s first two defense secretaries on Tuesday night questioned his Syria strategy and said they would have told him not to seek Congress’ approval for a strike on President Bashar Assad’s forces,” USA Today reports.

Said Leon Panetta: “When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word.”

Robert Gates disagreed that the U.S. should strike because it would be like “throwing gasoline on an extremely complex fire in the Middle East.” He added, “I believe to blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple of days to underscore or validate a point or principle is not a strategy.” Gates added that presidents “have become too quick to reach for a gun to solve an international problem.”

Major Garrett: “Taken together, Syria and Summers therefore represent—by history’s decree in the case of military power, and by Obama’s own grandiose vision of the Fed’s role in the economy—the most important second-term presentations of power. And Senate Democrats were Obama’s undoing in both cases.”

Nancy Cook: “Remember that split among congressional Republicans on fiscal strategy? Well, now it seems the Democrats have the makings of a similar problem.”

New York Times: “For four years, President Obama counted on fellow Democrats to rally to his side in a series of epic battles with Republicans over the direction of the country. But now, deep in his fifth year in office, Mr. Obama finds himself frustrated by members of his own party weary of his leadership and increasingly willing to defy him. In recent weeks, disgruntled Democrats, particularly liberals, have bolted from the White House on issues like National Security Agency surveillance policies, a planned military strike on Syria and the potential choice of Lawrence H. Summers to lead the Federal Reserve. In private, they often sound exasperated describing Mr. Obama’s operation; in public, they are sometimes only a little more restrained.”

John Harris and Todd Purdum: “The president’s harried, serial about-faces on Syria — coupled with the collapse of Larry Summer’s candidacy for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve — have combined to highlight some enduring limitations of Obama’s approach to decision-making, public persuasion and political management.”

And then they ask “what’s right.” The British have a saying about the twin rules of journalism: first simplify, then exaggerate.

Also, RNC Chair Reince Priebus pens a post hitting Obama’s foreign-policy decisions. The piece is entitled: “Wasn’t Ready Then, Isn’t Ready Now.”

Roll Call: “Unable to find the votes for a strategy that only superficially defunds Obamacare, it now appears the House GOP may pursue the plan that tea-party-inspired members have been clamoring for — a stopgap spending bill that will actually defund the health care law but keep the rest of the government running.”

“House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are playing the last cards in their hand — and they’re most likely losers,” Politico writes. “The House Republican leadership’s decision to try to defund Obamacare this week in its government funding bill, and their promise to wage a no-holds-barred fight to delay the health care law as part of the debt ceiling fight, is a double-barreled strategy that could set Boehner, Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the House Republican Conference up for two big defeats.”

Los Angeles Times: “The federal deficit has shrunk to its lowest level since 2008, according to a report released Tuesday, but House Republicans will begin the next budget battle this week with a vote that threatens to shut down the federal government unless President Obama agrees to halt his healthcare law. The deficit has dropped from its peak at the start of the Great Recession and is on track to decline even more thanks to an improving economy, higher taxes on the wealthy and reduced federal spending, the report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded.”

Washington Post: “The threat of a government shutdown intensified Tuesday as House Republican leaders moved toward stripping funding from President Obama’s landmark health-care initiative and setting up a stalemate with the Democratic Senate. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) had hoped to keep the government open past Sept. 30 with relatively little fuss. But roughly 40 conservatives revolted. After a strategy session Tuesday, Boehner and his leadership team were being pushed into a more confrontational strategy that would fund the government into the new fiscal year only if Democrats agreed to undermine Obama’s signature legislative achievement.”

David Nakamura: “House leaders said they will hold a policy meeting Thursday on issues important to the Latino community, including immigration, and they released a video to mark the start of Hispanic Heritage Month this week. But the video made no mention of immigration, and some lawmakers who support of a comprehensive overhaul said they fear the clock is running out as Congress and the White House turn to an extended debate over the budget and debt ceiling. Advocates said they will keep pressure on the House, including a rally and concert on the Mall on Oct. 8 featuring a performance by Grammy-winning Latin group Los Tigres del Norte. Organizers expect the two-hour concert to draw tens of thousands of people to Congress’s doorstep, an important visual symbol that can add cultural weight to the political movement.”

Roll Call: “Sen. David Vitter’s push to eliminate health care benefits for lawmakers and staff may finally get a vote this week, but few on either side of the aisle seem happy about it. The Louisiana Republican’s lonely push to prohibit lawmakers and staff from keeping their health benefits in the new Obamacare exchanges held up the Senate for nearly a week. The stakes are high for Capitol Hill, and senior aides on both sides of the aisle fear a brain drain if staffers lose their benefits. The vote also could hold political peril given that senators would have to vote to save their own benefits as well if they vote down Vitter’s amendment.”

NBC’s Carrie Dann and Kasie Hunt: “A day after a mass shooting left 13 dead within two miles of the Capitol, federal gun legislation is in the same place as it’s been for months: stalled in Congress. Still stung by an April defeat in the Senate, discouraged proponents of gun control legislation say that the chances for change are still dim, even as new calls for reform echo in the wake of the Navy Yard massacre.”

And when “Top Chef” comes to Washington. “Tom Colicchio — the head judge on the ‘Top Chef’ television show who runs his own restaurant empire — will bring his talents to the nation’s capital on Tuesday. But don’t expect a Washington restaurant from him anytime soon. Mr. Colicchio is here as a board member of Food Policy Action, which rates members of Congress based on how they vote on food policies,” the New York Times writes.

Democrats have “mounted a concerted push to recruit military veterans to run in next year’s midterm, figuring it’s a lot harder for Republicans to caricature people who’ve donned their country’s uniform as Obama-loving liberals,” Politico writes.

KANSAS: Kansas City Star: “Democrat Paul Davis officially entered the 2014 Kansas governor’s race on Tuesday, declaring it was ‘time to set things right’ in seeking to defeat incumbent Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Davis, the House minority leader and Lawrence attorney, announced his plans through Facebook and Twitter, as well as a YouTube video. It is the 41-year-old Davis’ first attempt at a statewide office. No other Democrats have joined the race.”

KENTUCKY:  “An outside group boosting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is preparing to go up with TV ads lauding him for his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. … The nonprofit Kentucky Opportunity Coalition plans to spend $325,000 on a week’s worth of commercials running statewide,” Politico reports. “The ads come as the Kentucky Republican faces pressure from the right to threaten a government shutdown rather than fund the federal health care law. The spots emphasize McConnell’s opposition to ‘Obamacare’ and cite the recent decision by UPS to drop health coverage for 15,000 ‘working spouses,’ a decision the company blamed in part on the ACA.”

MICHIGAN:  National Journal: “Rep. Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican who has established himself as the leading libertarian in the House of Representatives, will not run for U.S. Senate in 2014, according to several sources familiar with the congressman’s decision. Amash was tempted by the allure of a campaign for higher office, sources say, but the second-term lawmaker ultimately was unwilling to risk surrendering the clout he enjoys among conservatives in the GOP-controlled House.”

NEW JERSEY: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will campaign with Democratic Senate nominee Cory Booker on Friday in Jersey City, the Newark mayor’s campaign announced on Tuesday.

The New York Times looks at how Gov. Chris Christie’s “close relationship” with the RGA “provides a playbook for how carefully choreographed independent spending campaigns can undermine the rules meant to curtail the political influence of government contractors; New Jersey’s pay-to-play law strictly limits the participation of state contractors in political giving.”

NEW YORK: Democrat Bill de Blasio leads Republican Joe Lhota by 43 points, 65%-22%, in the race for New York mayor, according to an NBC4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.

TEXAS: Washington Post: “Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) is almost ready to announce her gubernatorial bid – but first she will expand her social network just a little bit more. In an e-mail sent to her supporters Wednesday morning, Davis — who garnered national attention this summer for fighting a sweeping antiabortion bill in her state — wrote she will be “answering the question” of what’s next for her career on Oct. 3. But before making her formal announcement, she posed a question of her own: “Do you have any friends or family who would like to be among the first to know?”

VIRGINIA: A new Quinnipiac poll shows Terry McAuliffe (D) leading Ken Cuccinelli (R) 44-41% with libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis getting 7% of the vote. There is a big split in the fav/unfavs of Cuccinelli and McAuliffe. Voters are split on McAuliffe giving him a 38/38 fav/unfav, but Cuccinelli is at 34/51.

The Washington Post: A rally full of tea party supporters on “Constitution Day” for Ken Cuccinelli in Northern Virginia, “raised eyebrows” when “John Whitbeck, 10th Congressional District Republican Committee chairman …  kicked off the festivities by telling a joke in which the head of the Jewish religion presented the pope with a long, elaborate document that the Jewish leader said was a bill for the last supper. The crowd laughed uproariously,” the Post writes. (Here’s video, circulated by liberal PAC American Bridge.)

Republican strategist Chris La Civita, advising the Cuccinelli campaign, told the Post: “I don’t even know who the guy is. It’s wholly inappropriate and not connected to the campaign. And it’s not reflective of Ken Cuccinelli.”

WEST VIRGINIA: Charleston Daily Mail: “The Democrat announced her candidacy to more than 75 people at the Culture Center in Charleston Tuesday morning as part of a statewide campaign kickoff. Tennant’s announcement essentially guarantees she’ll square off against Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. In vowing to protect West Virginia’s jobs, children and future, Tennant wasted little time before attacking Capito and her record.”