Subject: POLITICO Huddle: IS THE CAPITOL TOO ACCESSIBLE? -- Mid-terms most expensive ever -- Southerland’s gaffe -- SANDERS SPURNS MCCONNELL -- Peek at Rand’s speech
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 06:46:56 -0600

By Burgess Everett (@burgessev or 
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CLOSED-OFF CAPITOL SQUARE? The Capitol's former top cop Terry Gainer told Roll Call's industrious Hannah Hess that he'd like to see a "tasteful" fence around the Capitol and to see traffic rerouted on Independence and Constitution -- major roads that, umm, certain people use quite frequently. "The only people that have left their campus open is the Capitol ... Now, I get people wanting to be open, but people have to somehow understand there are constant threats and if the only way to mitigate the threat is have an officer chase after the bad guy - you're going to end up having problems." Clearly he is more qualified than I to make this assessment, but it would completely change the entire
 Capitol Hill neighborhood for residents and tourists. 
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Related news: AP: "The 23-year-old Maryland man who climbed over the White House fence Wednesday night has been charged with felonies for assaulting two police dogs and making threats, the Secret Service said Thursday ... The incident came about a month after a previous White House fence jumper carrying a knife sprinted across the same lawn, ran past armed uniformed agents and entered the mansion before he was felled in the ceremonial East Room and taken into custody." 
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MOST EXPENSIVE MID-TERMS EVER: You've heard it, I've heard it. Now the data is coming in. OpenSecrets is projecting that this midterm will approach $4 billion in total spending, with a slight overall edge to Republicans. "GOP and conservative-leaning candidates, party committees and outside groups will spend at least $1.92 billion, compared to at least $1.76 billion their rivals on the Democratic and liberal-leaning side ... The 2010 midterm cost $3.6 billion; this one will run an estimated $333 million more than that. The congressional portion of the 2012 race cost about $3.6 billion as well." The Democratic Party committees have a slight edge over the GOP here, while conservative-leaning
 outside groups have the edge over Democrats. The total doesn't include some types of outside spending from earlier this year, which have boosted Republicans more than Dems 
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Members of Congress, still not like us: Using OpenSecrets data. WaPo puts together some good graphs that bring home just how much richer your representative or senator is than you. 
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AD MAKERS GET BIZZY: Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) made what you might call a blunder in an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat's editorial board last week. The congressman said that he hadn't read the Violence Against Women Act bill that he voted against, arguing that the House versions had gone through "regular order" while the Senate bill was jammed through. "No, I haven&#39;t read all the bill. I mean, it doesn&#39;t matter. I don&#39;t have it. It&#39;s law. The horse is out of the barn. I mean it&#39;s gone. Okay? And I didn&#39;t have a chance to read it,' he said. "Any time a member is put in a situation, where staff knows what the bill is but the member duly elected by the
 people has not had a chance to read a bill, Democracy and Republicanism is undermined." If this ends up in an ad, can't imagine you're going to get all that context. Watch it here: 
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SO YOU'RE SAYING THERE'S A CHANCE? Sorry GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, it doesn't look like the independent from Vermont will want to lunch with you next year. In response to a "flurry" of speculation about what independents will do next year, Sen. Bernie Sanders's office released a statement this morning that read, in part: "I intend to caucus with that party that will most likely support ... rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; supports overturning the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision; supports raising the minimum wage to a living wage; supports pay equity for women workers; supports a single-payer national health care program; ends our disastrous trade policies;
 addresses the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality; and is prepared to aggressively address the international crisis of global warming ...  I could be wrong ... but my guess is that will not be the Republican Party."

DEBATE WATCH: Tonight C-SPAN takes you to Iowa for the 4th District debate between Rep. Steve King and Jim Mowrer at 8 p.m. This race doesn't seem particularly competitive according to my cursory research, but Steve King DOES know how to get headlines.

A BRIGHTENING THURSDAY MORNING. Good morning from 16th Street SE, where I just learned that my grandmother Cynthia Castleman, a former D.C. journalist, used to hang with Ben Bradlee as a kid in Massachusetts. Welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play guide to everything Capitol Hill. Please send tips to 
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BIG FEW WEEKS FOR RAND -- Foreign policy: Today Sen. Rand Paul will lay out his foreign policy position this evening at a New York dinner that urges putting "limits" on getting into foreign conflicts, Manu reports this morning, "America shouldn't fight wars where the best outcome is stalemate ... America shouldn't fight wars when there is no plan for victory. America shouldn't fight wars that aren't authorized by the American people, by Congress. America should and will fight wars when the consequences - intended and unintended - are worth the sacrifice ... We need a foreign policy that recognizes our limits and preserves our might, a common-sense conservative realism of strength and
 action," 
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2016 chatter: Paul's top political adviser Doug Stafford has told Paul-world to circle the date of Nov. 12 for a meeting that "As I understand it ... is to both literally and symbolically change focus after the November election," according to one invitee." NJ's Shane Goldmacher: 
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THE OTHER KENTUCKY SENATOR: McConnell tells George Will that "he anticipates a Republican majority in 2015. Then, he says, 'a lot of institutional repair' will begin ... 'An executive order can't [create consensus]. The fiat of a nine-person court can't do it. A raucous and precarious partisan majority in the House can't do it. The only institution that can make stable and enduring laws is the one we have in which all 50 states are represented equally, and where every single senator has a say in the laws that we pass.'" 
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EMPTY CAPITOL: We aren't necessarily complaining, but the amount of congressional press releases and new policy statements have really hit the skids in the past month. Part of it is that Congress is in recess, but equally responsible for the dearth of congressional talk is that many of the talented comms people are now on the campaign trail. Most of the people I know don't particularly want to be called out for their trail work, but Roll Call's Kate Ackley and Emma Dumain found one man who will talk: Speaker John Boehner's press secretary Michael Steel. Here's Steel's signature deadpan: "I take about an hour every day to have dinner, which is the closest thing I'm doing to having fun." 
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FOR EXAMPLE: It's been largely crickets from members of Congress after big events this week: The death of Ben Bradlee and the attacks on the Canadian parliament. The only statements we got on the Ottawa shooting was from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and House Speaker John Boehner, who said: "Prime Minister Harper and Speaker Scheer have and will continue to have friends and allies in the U.S. Congress who are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with them against our common enemies and who are prepared to move forward in our aims to improve the quality of life and economic opportunities for both our countries."

HOUSE GOP LAYS OUT AGENDA: Being less dependent on election results than the toss-up Senate, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has released a general agenda for 2015 that will focus on streamlining government and cutting duplicity, per Jake and Bres. There are "many government failures that Congress can fix, even if they don&#39;t make front page headlines," McCarthy says in the full memo. 
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PICK ME! Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, he of NRSC chair speculation, has "distributed $268,000 among every Republican Senate incumbent running for re-election and challengers in all but a half-dozen races that are out of GOP reach," per Las Vegas RJ. "At the end of September, the Nevadan had spent $402,500 on fellow Republicans out of his Heller for Senate election fund and his personal political action committee, the HellerHighWater PAC. Aides said he continues to spend as the elections near, but they declined to say how much or where." 
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CHAMPAGNE ON CHILL: Jake and Anna get their hands on an invite for Republicans' election day parties. Do they think they are going to take the Senate or something? 
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ROUNDS AND ROUNDS: This one fell through the cracks earlier this week, but here's some hard evidence of the NRSC boosting South Dakota Senate candidate Mike Rounds. 
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MANCHIN HANGS WITH RAHALL: The Hill's Scott Wong catches up with the two moderate Democrats in West Virginia, where Sen. Joe Manchin is going hard for Rep. Nick Rahall, the perpetually vulnerable House Democrat. "''Nick is the real deal ... moderate, conservative voice in the House that understands energy, that understands coal, who can explain what we do,'" Manchin said. 
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Every two years: Manchin:"To replace what Nick Joe Rahall has brought and continues to bring to West Virginia would be almost impossible. Sen. Jay Rockefeller: "Nick Rahall, if he tried, couldn't lose." These are both from a 2012 article I wrote about Rahall. He won three months later, 54-46. 
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HOUSE GOP'S TRIVIA WINNER: Rep. James Lankford was the first to choose " Statuary Hall as the room in which the British started the fire that destroyed most of the Capitol on August 24, 1814," per Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's monthly memo.

WEDNESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - John Meza of Rep. Beto O'Rourke's office was the first to come up with Rep. Lindy Bogg's two big political firsts: First woman to rep Louisiana and first woman to chair a major party convention.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - John has today's question, even though he's deviated from my Louisiana theme. "Two of the most powerful men in Washington are reported smokers.Which brand(s) of cigarettes are [reportedly] the stress reliever of choice for House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama?" The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at 
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