“[Coburn’s] been one of the foremost proponents of small government and cutting spending, so for him to advocate for a tax increase as part of a compromise is very significant,” said Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group focused on reducing the deficit.

“It really does provide a great deal of cover for other Republicans. Coburn was tea party before there was a tea party.”

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Coburn has also privately been making the “tactical argument” to Republican senators and his former House colleagues that the GOP’s best option is to agree to the rate hikes, then extract spending cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, said one Senate source.

And while Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP leaders publicly oppose any tax hike in the fiscal deal, they haven’t tried to silence Coburn, sources said. But the former three-term congressman is perhaps freer to speak his mind than most Republicans: A proponent of term limits, he has pledged not to run for a third Senate term in 2016.

“The reality is there is a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate — and the only way you’re going to start doing something to save Medicare, to save Social Security is to give them revenue,” Coburn told POLITICO. “It’s wrong, but that’s the real world we live in.”

Democrats, of course, are all too happy to highlight Coburn’s call for higher taxes on the rich. They’ve been blasting out his remarks in news releases and reciting them at press conferences and in floor speeches.

“I think there is more and more reality on the Republican side that the American people want and expect a balanced, bipartisan solution,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the Democratic leadership team, told POLITICO. “I welcome Sen. Coburn’s remarks.”

For his part, Coburn grumbled that the media have taken his quotes out of context and that Democrats have unfairly tried to paint him as a new convert to tax increases.

In fact, Coburn has been pushing for a balanced approach to deficit reduction for years. A member of Obama’s fiscal commission, Coburn voted for the $4 trillion Simpson-Bowles plan, which would let the Bush tax cuts expire for income over $250,000 and generate more than $1 trillion in revenue increases by lowering corporate and income tax rates and other reforms. After the commission failed, he joined the bipartisan Gang of Six senators to continue working on deficit-cutting ideas.

Last year, Coburn proposed legislation to eliminate tax loopholes for movie producers and the ethanol industry; the move that put him at odds with Norquist, who viewed the amendments as a violation of his group’s anti-tax pledge signed by most GOP lawmakers.

And Coburn’s “Wastebook 2012” report revealed that the federal government provides the NFL, PGA and other pro sports organizations $91 million worth of tax loopholes, while spending $300,000 in taxpayer money to promote caviar.

“I’ve been out there a long time on this. I voted for Simpson-Bowles. There’s nothing new,” Coburn said. “It’s a game to help the president. ‘Oh, here’s another Republican [who backs tax hikes]’ — it’s B.S.”