John Boehner Measures Speaker's Chair

Almost four months before the midterm election that could catapult Majority Leader John Boehner into the speakership, he's beginning to build up his personal image and launch a PR offensive to explain what he’d do if he ran the House.

The Ohio Republican has been eyeing the speaker’s office for about two decades — ever since he passed up a 1992 opportunity to run for an open Senate seat — and he is beginning to peel the curtain on his elusive image.

Boehner is trying to strike a bipartisan tone — one that is likely to be mocked by Democrats who remember him as allowing his Republican colleagues to egg on protestors as the majority tried to pass health care overhaul legislation.

Yet, the picture Boehner would like to project is that of his time as chairman of the Education and Workforce committee. He said that if he could pass No Child Left Behind with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) anyone could work together. He said he would work with “anybody on the other side of the aisle.”

Should Republicans win the majority, Boehner would need to work with President Barack Obama, a man who has been mocking Boehner publicly for weeks.

“I don’t know which President Obama I’ll be dealing with,” Boehner said. “If it’s the one I dealt with over the past 18 months, while it's been pleasant, none of the ideas [that] he’s asked us for that we’ve provided have been adopted, and they’ve had a go-it-alone approach for 18 months.”

To be sure, Boehner is still parroting some well-worn talking points that even make Republicans cringe: he asked where the jobs are (his favorite moniker from the past year) and said that “there isn’t a race in America [Republicans] can't win.”

He hates being politically labeled — that’s why he avoids joining caucuses. For example, earlier this week he passed up the opportunity to join the House Tea Party Caucus.

But he still has the thorny issue of the conservative wing of his party, which hardly trusts him and sees establishment Republicans as being nearly as bad as Democrats. The GOP has taken the plan to “walk amongst” tea partiers, and Boehner touted his experience of speaking to the group in California and Ohio.

Some folks at these rallies, Boehner said, are “anarchists who want to kill all of us in public office,” but some are Democrats, others disenfranchised Republicans and most of them are angry at the way the country is heading.

Boehner also gave a clue to what Republican policies he doesn't support. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the Budget committee, laid out his roadmap for the future — a 75-year plan that alters entitlements and Social Security. Boehner said “parts of it are well done, other parts I’ve got some doubts about in terms of how good the policy is.”

More here