There are some widely accepted fixes emerging from the week-long talks. Republicans quietly plot their future

It’s simple: House Republicans say that if they spend the next two years like they spent the past two, they’ll become irrelevant.

So for the past few days, GOP leaders have met behind closed doors to both craft an agenda that confronts the ghosts of Congresses past and figure out a way to sell it to the American people.


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According to a source present, one meeting in Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) office featured GOP strategist Karl Rove floating a plan for every single Republican to give a floor speech on the same topic with the same message, in a bid to grab headlines.

That may not happen, but there are some widely accepted fixes emerging from the weeklong talks.

Rule one: Stop talking like the world is going to end. Budgetary politics is important to the GOP, but voters are going to stop voting for a party that talks about gloom and doom around the clock.

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“I think that we need to make being fiscally conservative cool,” said Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), chairwoman of the Administration Committee and a close ally of Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Rule two: Stop repealing regulations no one has heard of. It’s nice to be the party of cutting red tape, Republicans say, but no one has heard of boiler MACT or utility MACT. So spending time throwing these bills on the floor is absolutely useless. Package regulation cutting together, and explain that people’s energy will be cheaper, Republicans say.

“Does anyone have any idea how this fits their family? No. No one has any idea what that is,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of leadership who is leading the agenda-crafting effort. “Just an individual bill that deals with one regulation that people can’t connect to? No more of that.”

Rule three: Sand down the party’s rough edges. Pass education bills and immigration legislation. Stop screaming about red ink and spending too much. This one is going to be tough, since House Republicans haven’t been able to pass a bill called the Violence Against Woman Act for more than a year.

It’s a nagging problem for the party, whose main legislative agenda has been opposing President Barack Obama.

And that’s what defines the GOP at the moment. For instance, they don’t want to raise the minimum wage. They aren’t looking to curb gun laws after children were slain in Connecticut and Chicago. Most of them don’t approve of a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. They are cooling on tax reform. They aren’t looking to spend money to create manufacturing hubs.

These sessions, combined with Cantor’s American Enterprise Institute speech and media tour, is beginning to give shape to the party in the 113th Congress.

It’s not all smooth.

GOP leadership is attending these sessions, and has become increasingly alarmed at how many lawmakers in the meeting think the party has a messaging problem, not a policy problem.

“I really believe it’s not the message, it’s the ideas,” Lankford said. “But the way we present the ideas, we do it too blunt. And so many conservatives I’m around, we just state the fact, figures and numbers and say, ‘Doesn’t this make sense?’ And people say, ‘How does that affect my life?’”

Conservatives privately are griping at a party that seems to be shifting to the center. Many are happy with their party’s conservative lean, and don’t see a need for course correction. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said what’s plaguing the party is “a registration and turnout problem.”

“What we have is a broad message out of Leader Cantor, and that sends a message out there that we’re broadening the party,” King told POLITICO. “And I’m going to presume that was in the aftermath of this election, and they’re looking at how they do better with a broader appeal. They want to take some of the sharp edges off. That’s a piece of it. Does it change policy and principles? We’ll have to see. That’s part of what goes on inside. When they move some of those things, if they compromise our principles, conservatives will stand up, and I’ll be one of them.”

Then there’s the budget. House Republicans have centered their messaging around the Senate’s unwillingness to pass a budget, claiming it renders them fiscally irresponsible. But moderates are privately fretting about their 2014 budget, which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Speaker John Boehner say will balance within 10 years.

Some of these concerns are beginning to spill into the open.

“We are saying a 10-year balance — that’s tougher than the last Ryan budget,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a former Budget Committee member and currently an Appropriations cardinal. “There could be a significant number of Republicans that say, ‘I’m not going there because it would be too dramatic.’ I have said to my constituents, nobody is talking about changing Social Security and Medicare if you’re 55 years or over.’ I’ve been selling it for three or four years that way. So have many other members. Well, to balance in 10, that 55 years is going to move up to 58, 59, 60. It makes us look like we’re going back on what we were telling people when we were trying to sell this.”