THE FIGHT FOR THIRD:

Thirteen months before his first presidential election, George W. Bush was on a California campaign swing with a single reporter. The news in Washington was a House GOP plan to slash federal spending, and his spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, encouraged me to ask Bush about it.

"We shouldn't balance the budget on the backs of the poor," the Texas governor told me. And so began Bush's successful rebranding of the Republican Party: He separated himself from unpopular congressional Republicans and rode "compassionate conservatism" to the White House. [...]

Immigration is a no-brainer: " ... We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only." Bush's inroads with Hispanic voters were squandered by anti-immigration conservatives who blocked reforms during his presidency. But Priebus later refused to discuss specifics such as whether illegal immigrants should be given a pathway to citizenship, according to AP. "I think it's healthy for our party to have this discussion, but the details of that, and what that legislation looks like, is not something that the RNC chair does," he said, distancing himself from the issue.

The House GOP is not the GOP: Like Bush, the Priebus report tries to distance the party's reputation from Congress. "The GOP today is a tale of two parties. One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future." The report cites policy successes of several GOP governors, including Nathan Deal of Georgia, who saved the state's popular scholarship program from bankruptcy. The report also praises New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a conservative condemned by some right-wing partisans because he worked with President Obama on hurricane recovery.

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