TAKE with里克·克莱因
共和党两者都不如分开比现在看起来更加分裂——而且不是沿着最容易的政治道路滑行。
在前总统唐纳德·特朗普的问题上，共和党的分歧小于多彩的众议院领袖新闻发布会可能会让人觉得。该党仍然主要属于特朗普，因为CPAC聚会将于周四在佛罗里达开始的游行示威。
关于乔·拜登总统的议程问题，实际上更多共和党纠纷比肉眼看到的还要多。第一层投票给拜登新冠肺炎套餐即将于周五在众议院举行，但国会中团结的共和党反对派与关于这一主题的公众投票不一致。
在广大公众中，拜登和他的COVID计划相当更受欢迎比特朗普和反对冠状病毒肺炎宽慰，至少现在是这样。但共和党议员似乎更担心反对特朗普的政治反弹，而不是对COVID法案投反对票。
共和党人相信他们有能力定义COVID法案——众议院共和党领袖凯文·麦卡锡称之为“浪费”和“进步人士的愿望清单”——而拜登白宫也有能力这样做。
在反对总统的情况下，政党团结往往更容易实现，而且是巨大的价格标签救命。但它仍有自身的潜在成本。
的纲要亚里沙·威尔斯马
地震的余波德克萨斯天气危机可能已经将该州的基础设施问题置于严格的审查之下，但政治后果仍然是一个问号。
在上个月接受当地电台采访时，前国会议员和前2020年总统候选人贝托·奥洛克说他在考虑2022年可能的州长竞选。在艾伯特说奥罗克在第二修正案上的立场在州长竞选中不会“卖得好”之后，奥罗克在一系列推特上阐述了他反对州长格雷格·艾伯特的平台。
现在，奥鲁克作为一名当地的人道主义者重返政治领域，这与关于他的无休止的头条新闻形成了戏剧性的对比前对手特德·克鲁兹的坎昆假期失策。一些德克萨斯州的民主党人认为屏幕分割是一个动员的机会在他们寻求在十年内颠覆国家的过程中。但至少有一位资深的民主党战略家表示，该党可以瞄准更近的目标，并认为奥鲁克在政治上可能会更合适。
“德克萨斯州民主党的人说(可能需要十年才能颠覆这个州)，他们从来没有参加过竞选，也没有赢得过选举，”科林·斯特罗瑟(Colin Strother)告诉美国广播公司新闻，他曾在众议员亨利·库勒尔2020年的竞选中工作。
斯特罗瑟还承认，尽管奥鲁克拥有政治明星般的权力和“仆人的心”，但他可能更适合政治组织，而不是寻求办公室。他说:“对德克萨斯来说，最好的可能是贝托扮演一个史黛西·艾布拉姆斯式的角色，做贝托最擅长的事情——筹集资金、组织、让人们兴奋起来、很好地表达我们的价值观，而不是专注于一场比赛，帮助我们把德克萨斯推向蓝柱。”。
小费肯德尔·胡炬雄
对参议员里克·斯科特来说，共和党内战“被取消了”。或者至少，必须如此。随着共和党人继续与清晰的划分超过特朗普在党内的作用斯科特恳求共和党克服内部冲突，在明年中期选举前团结起来。
他在一份声明中表示:“拜登政府中的激进极端分子正在吞噬我们。”录像在全国共和党参议员委员会分发了一份备忘录标题为:“共和党内战已经取消。”
尽管特朗普的盟友面临着一些反弹在投票反对为拜登认证宾夕法尼亚州的选民后，他带领参议院共和党人回到多数派的策略包括——部分包括——特朗普。在备忘录中，他吹捧前总统在扩大党内基础方面的成功，并呼吁共和党在特朗普2020年“7400万张选票”的联盟基础上再接再厉。斯科特还与特朗普讨论了2022年选举和他在他们的努力中可能扮演的角色，一位NRSC发言人向美国广播公司证实。
“如果我们一起努力，我们可以很容易地增加我们的数字，”他在备忘录中写道。
GOP finds risky form of unity in opposing COVID relief bill: The Note
The TAKE with Rick Klein
The Republican Party is both less divided and more divided than it seems at the moment -- and not in ways that glide along the easiest political paths.
On the question of former President Donald Trump, the GOP is less divided than a colorful House leadership news conference might make it seem. The party still belongs primarily to Trump, as the CPAC gathering that begins Thursday in Florida will demonstrate.
On the question of President Joe Biden's agenda, there's actually more GOP dissension than meets the eye. The first floor votes on Biden's COVID-19 package are coming Friday in the House, yet united Republican opposition in Congress doesn't align with public polling on the topic.
Among the public at large, Biden and his COVID plans are considerably more popular than Trump and opposing COVID relief, at least for now. But Republican lawmakers appear to fear more political blowback in opposing Trump than voting "no" on COVID bills.
Republicans are putting faith in their ability to define the COVID bill -- House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is calling it "waste" and "a wish list from the progressives" -- up against the Biden White House's ability to do the same.
Party unity is often easier to achieve in opposition to a president, and huge price tags help. But it still carries potential costs of its own.
The RUNDOWN with Alisa Wiersema
The fallout from the Texas weather crisis may have put the state's infrastructure problems under sharp scrutiny, but the political aftermath is still somewhat of a question mark.
In an interview with a local radio show last month, former congressman and former 2020 presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke said he was thinking about a possible 2022 run for governor. O'Rourke then essentially laid out his platform against Gov. Greg Abbott in a series of tweets, after Abbott said O'Rourke's stance on the second amendment wouldn't "sell well" in a gubernatorial contest.
Now, O'Rourke's reentry into the political sphere as a local humanitarian presents a dramatic contrast to the endless headlines about his former rival, Sen. Ted Cruz's, Cancun vacation misstep. Some Texas Democrats see the split screen as an opportunity to mobilize around the moment in their quest to flip the state over the course of the decade. But at least one veteran Democratic strategist says the party could aim for a closer goalpost and thinks there could be a better political fit for O'Rourke along the way.
"The people at the Texas Democratic Party that are saying (it could take a decade to flip the state) have never run and won an election," Colin Strother, who worked on Rep. Henry Cuellar's 2020 campaign, told ABC News.
Strother also acknowledges that despite O'Rourke's political star power and "servant's heart," he could be better suited for political organizing, rather than seeking office. "What may be the best for Texas, is Beto in a Stacey Abrams-type role, doing what Beto does best -- raising money, organizing, getting people wound up, expressing our values well, and rather than focusing on one race, help us focus on moving Texas closer towards the blue column," he said.
The TIP with Kendall Karson
For Sen. Rick Scott, the GOP civil war is "cancelled." Or at least, it has to be. As Republicans continue to wrestle with clear divisions within their ranks over Trump's role in the party, Scott is imploring the GOP to move past their internal strife and unite before next year's midterms.
"The radical extremists running the Biden administration are spending us into oblivion," he says in a video released one day after the National Republican Senatorial Committee circulated a memo titled: "REPUBLICAN CIVIL WAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED."
Though the Trump ally, who took the helm of the NRSC as chair this cycle, faced some backlash after voting against certifying Pennsylvania's electors for Biden, his strategy to lead Senate Republicans back to the majority includes -- in part -- Trump. In the memo, he touts the former president's success for broadening the party's base and calls for the GOP to build on Trump's coalition that turned out "74 million votes" in 2020. Scott has also spoken with Trump about the 2022 elections and his possible role in their efforts, a NRSC spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
"We can easily add to our numbers if we work together," he wrote in the memo.
