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Protestors urge a raise in the minimum wage outside the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center April 29 in Washington, DC. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Today in the Morning Line:

GOP cracks on minimum wage, voter ID: Two high-profile Republicans are splitting with the party on the minimum wage and voter identification requirements. Mitt Romney, who proposed tying the minimum wage to inflation during his 2012 presidential run, said, I part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage. I think we ought to raise it, because frankly, our party is all about more jobs and better pay. And I think communicating that is important to us. Just one Republican Bob Corker, R-Tenn. voted with Democrats to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour last week. Meanwhile, another Republican who is likely to run for president, Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Republicans should back off their voter ID push because it is alienating black voters. Everybodys gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing, Paul told the New York Times. I think its wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because its offending people. These are always going to be difficult issues for party leaders. Its easy for Romney to speak out; hes not running for anything again (he says). And Paul doesnt exactly swim in the GOP mainstream.

Tight Senate contests in Arkansas, Georgia and Kentucky: A trio of NBC News/Marist polls released Monday show Democrats keeping Senate races in Arkansas, Georgia and Kentucky competitive despite President Barack Obamas low approval ratings in all three states. In Arkansas, a top Republican target this cycle, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor holds an 11-point lead, 51 percent to 40 percent, over GOP Rep. Tom Cotton among registered voters. Thats despite just 34 percent of Arkansans approving of the presidents job performance. (Pryor also held a 10-point lead in a New York Times/Kaiser poll released last month.) The results also show Democrats tied, as they hope for upsets, in Georgia, where Michelle Nunn runs close to all five of her potential GOP opponents, and Kentucky, where Alison Lundergan Grimes trails Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell by a single point. The presidents approval rating in Kentucky is at 32 percent, while in Georgia its slightly better at 41 percent. The toughest matchup for Nunn appears to be businessman David Perdue, who leads the GOP primary race set for May 20 with 23 percent support. Hes followed by Rep. Jack Kingston at 18 percent, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel at 14 percent and Reps. Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey each with 11 percent. The bottom line is the surveys, taken together, are a dose of good news for Democrats. For one, the negative feelings toward Mr. Obama in these three states do not appear to be causing a significant drag on the Democratic candidates. Republicans need to gain six seats to take control of the Senate, a goal that becomes much more difficult without Arkansas. And if Democrats can keep Georgia and Kentucky in play, it could force Republicans to spend resources in those states that might be needed elsewhere.

Down in the Bayou: The outlook is not as rosy for Sen. Mary Landrieu, where a new Louisiana poll by Southern Media & Opinion Research has the Democrat up just 36 percent to 35 percent over GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy. But more troubling for Landrieu is that she gets just a 39 percent positive rating and a 58 percent negative. Her negatives have increased 30 points over the course of a year and a half, according to the survey. Two other Republican contenders combined for 11 percent. Since there is no primary in the Bayou State, all of the candidates will be on the ballot in November. If no candidate clears 50 percent on Election Day, then the top two finishers will face off in a December runoff (aka the Louisiana Limbo), which, depending on the outcomes in other states, could also determine control of the Senate.

Rubio denies humans to blame for climate change: Marco Rubio, a possible 2016 contender, said on ABCs This Week that he does not believe humans have contributed to climate change. I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy. The L.A. Times points out, A National Climate Assessment released by the White House last week found that Rubios home state of Florida is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels and changes in temperatures and storm patterns. Rubio sees it as hokum. Our climate is always changing, he said. Meanwhile, he said he thinks he has the experience to be president. I do, he said. I mean, but I think thats true for multiple other people that would want to run. Its another piece of evidence of Rubio watching his right flank after his support of immigration reform and that hes still seriously considering running for president.

Benghazi Do Democrats join the select committee? Democrats appear to still be undecided on whether they will join the newly formed select committee on Benghazi, although Xavier Becerras comments on Fox Sunday seem to indicate at least some Democratic participation is likely. Asked if Democrats would join, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House said, If its a fair, open and balanced process then absolutely. But we dont want to see reckless irresponsible handling of an affair that took the lives of four brave Americans. Rep. Trey Gowdy, the former prosecutor leading the new committee, softened his trial remarks. Last week, he said of the Obama administration, I cant end a trial simply because the defense wont cooperate. But asked if he saw himself as the prosecutor and the Obama administration as the defense, Gowdy replied, No sir. For 16 years I spoke in trial metaphors, and perhaps I need to get out of that habit.

Daily Presidential Trivia: On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy sent federal troops into Birmingham, Alabama, following the bombings there and the riots that resulted. What was the name given to the troops mission? Be the first to Tweet us the correct answer using #PoliticsTrivia, and youll get a Morning Line shout-out. Congratulations to EmGusk (@EmGusk) and Graham H. Morris (@GrahamHMorris) for guessing Fridays trivia correctly. The answer was: 2 Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Also a belated congratulations to Timothy Krzywisseau (@tkrzywic) for guessing Thursdays trivia correctly.

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Last week brought a refresher course in late-1990s politics, thanks to Monica Lewinsky. Those lessons might be useful to Republicans embarking on their Benghazi investigation.

Are House Republicans in danger of making the same mistake on Benghazi that House Republicans made on President Clinton's impeachment 16 years ago?

Staff writer

Mark is deputy national news editor for the Monitor.

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There's a poignancy to Monica Lewinsky bringing the politics of the late-1990s back into focus the same week House Republicans voted to create a special panel to investigate Benghazi.

Today, Republicans want to discover if the White House knowingly misled America about the causes of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, and then attempted to cover its tracks. In 1998, Republicans had more to sink their teeth into strong evidence that President Clinton had lied under oath about an affair with Ms. Lewinsky and they pushed it farther, actually impeaching Mr. Clinton.

But it blew up in their faces. Hoping to strengthen their House majority in the midterm elections that year, Republicans instead lost seats, forcing House Speaker Newt Gingrich to resign.

Much is different this time around. The American economy is nowhere near what it was in the Roaring '90s, and because of that, President Obama is nowhere near as popular as Clinton was in Year 6 of his presidency. Moreover, Benghazi is about the death of four Americans, including the ambassador; the Lewinsky scandal was about an affair.

Read the rest here:
What Monica Lewinsky can teach Republicans about Benghazi (+video)

With political indicators and historical cycles in their favor, Republicans are pushing the envelope to further energize their base with a full assault on the head of the opposition.

Parties that dont control the White House invariably gain in midterm elections. But the anti-Clinton drive energized Democrats in 1998. That year, Republicans failed to gain congressional seats in a midterm for the first time since 1934 and for the first time in a presidents second term since 1822.

In 2014, the Republicans risk a smaller-scale fiasco with the creation of a special committee to investigate the 2012 tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were killed. House Republicans see this as a political two-fer: an attack on President Barack Obama and on the Democrats presumptive 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state during the attack. This strategy is aimed at exciting the partys base and raising campaign cash.

Republican leaders say the purpose of the inquiry is to prove the administration initially tried to protect Obama in the middle of his re-election campaign by falsely claiming that the attack was a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video and not a carefully planned act of terrorism.

Republicans also aim to prove that the military response was inadequate and that there was a cover-up. They have seized on the White Houses failure to turn over a September 2012 memo from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes that contains talking points on the tragedy. Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who was tapped to chair the special committee created after the House Oversight panel embarrassed the party with clumsy theatrics, has called the inquiry a trial.

The administration inflicted some of this pain on itself. The White House did try to spin the incident initially to protect the president, and the Rhodes document routine fare should have been turned over. But the real lesson of Benghazi is how dangerous the aftermath of the overthrow of a foreign dictator can be. After Iraq and Afghanistan, thats not a favorite Republican topic.

Furthermore, the details of Benghazi have been aired repeatedly, with more than a dozen congressional hearings, several committee reports, scores of interviews and 25,000 pages of documents turned over. A credible commission headed by respected diplomat Tom Pickering and Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faulted the State Department for systemic failures and management deficiencies in protecting American outposts. It just didnt provide the evidence of lies and cover-ups Republicans wanted.

Mullen and other military leaders say it wouldnt have been possible to send U.S. forces to Benghazi to save the ambassador. Gowdy, who in winning his congressional seat four years ago was a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, questions those assertions.

A comprehensive post-mortem of the tragedy by The New York Times, including eyewitness testimony, concluded that although there were warning signs before the attack, it wasnt, as some Republicans charge, directed by groups sympathetic to al-Qaida and there had been a spontaneous response to the video.

Some Republicans worry that with voters focusing on other issues, this inquiry could boomerang.

Excerpt from:
Albert R. Hunt: Benghazi investigation may backfire on Republicans

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