Some Senate Republicans have quietly started working on a once-stalled compromise effort to expand background checks for guy buyers. It’s a glimmer of progress for a critical component of the gun control legislation the Senate plans to take up next week. 

At the top of that engagement list: Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a conservative Republican with a strong rating from the National Rifle Association. Senate aides familiar with the developments said that Toomey is engaged in talks with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who’s also reaching out to a number of other GOP senators. 

Also engaged in discussions with Manchin is Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, Senate aides said, although those conversations haven't progressed as far. Toomey, meanwhile, is also discussing a separate plan being circulated by Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn.

Coburn had been at the core of Democratic efforts to reach a compromise on background checks. But they couldn’t get over concerns about how to keep records of private gun sales. According to multiple Senate aides, Coburn is now passing around his own proposal, hoping to garner significant GOP support for a plan that would expand background checks but not require private merchants to keep records of the guns they sell.

Coburn's office denied the Oklahoma doctor is shopping his own bill.

Toomey has yet to officially sign on to any proposal.

"Sen. Toomey and his staff are talking to a lot of folks both in Pennsylvania and in the Capitol on the issues of guns in the hopes we get to an approach that works," said Toomey spokeswoman E.R. Anderson.

Focus on Manchin and his conversations are now a priority for Democratic leaders. It’s a shift from weeks of stasis following the failed talks with Coburn, and represents at least the potential for a breakthrough on President Barack Obama's proposed package of new gun laws.

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In the coming weeks, the Senate plans to vote on a bill that would expand background checks to private gun sales and make gun trafficking and straw purchasing (purchasing a gun and giving it someone who couldn’t legally obtain one) a federal crime. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised votes on an assault weapons ban and a measure to outlaw high-capacity magazines.

The new engagement reflects the complicated political realities emerging in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings that killed 20 elementary school children and 6 adults. Obama wants action on the issue -- possibly even if he has to sacrifice some of what gun control advocacy groups are pushing for. 

"What the president wants to sign is the strongest gun bill he can sign," senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Thursday at an event sponsored by Politico. "What we have to make sure is that whatever we do is better than current law."

Reid wants to show that the Senate is taking action -- "In order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks," he said last month -- but he has to protect Democratic lawmakers who hail from rural, Republican-leaning states like Arkansas if he wants to maintain a Democratic majority in the upper chamber. 

Most of the Republicans who are willing to talk, meanwhile, hail from swing states with lots of suburban voters open to new controls following Newtown. For Toomey, for example, that's the thousands of voters who live outside big cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

"There are people who do want something to vote for," said a Senate Republican aide familiar with the conversations. The numbers, after all, are there: polls show overwhelming numbers of Americans support background checks for all gun buyers.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday insisted "there doesn't have to be a conflict" between respecting gun rights and enacting new gun controls as he tries to use the power of his office to prompt a reluctant Congress to take action in the wake of the Newtown shootings.

But he declared: "This is not easy."

Obama flew to Colorado to advocate for a Senate bill requiring background checks for every gun buyer; a new law in the Centennial State requires just that.

"The loopholes that currently exist in the law have allowed way too many criminals and folks who shouldn't be getting guns -- it's allowed them to avoid background checks entirely," Obama said in a speech at the Denver Police Academy.

"Colorado has shown that practical progress is possible."

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama greets military personnel upon his arrival at Buckely Air Base in Denver, Colorado April 3, 2013.

Obama’s visit to Denver is part of a push to try to maintain -- or at this point, reignite -- momentum for stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and 6 adults.

Lawmakers are preparing to consider new gun laws on the Senate floor in the next two weeks, a package that Obama says is "commonsense" reform.

"We're not proposing a gun registration system; we're proposing background checks for criminals," he said Wednesday in Denver.

But the president acknowledged how difficult the path has become -- even for background checks, one of the less dramatic pieces of gun control legislation he proposed earlier this year.

"We knew from the beginning the change wouldn't be easy and we knew there would be powerful voices that would try to" stop gun laws, Obama said. "We knew they'd try to make any progress collapse under the weight of fear or frustration or maybe people would just stop paying attention."

Obama said that powerful gun advocates -- though he didn't name the National Rifle Association – are stoking fears that the background check bill amounts to a plan to take citizens' weapons away.

"We can't do background checks because the government's going to come take my guns away," the president said, paraphrasing the NRA's argument. Obama's retort: "The government's us. These officials are elected by you," he said, arguing that gun advocates "have ginned up fears among responsible gun owners that have nothing to do with what's being proposed and nothing to do with the facts." 

Colorado is a largely rural, western state with a strong hunting tradition -- and a sad history of mass shootings. Obama's event is planned not far from the Aurora movie theater where 12 people were gunned down last year -- now, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for alleged shooter James Holmes.

The state recently enacted a new package of gun laws that in some ways mirror what Obama and Vice President Joe Biden proposed after Newtown. Colorado didn't ban assault weapons, but the state did limit high capacity magazines to 15 rounds of ammunition and now requires anyone who wants to buy a gun to get a background check.

But that law passed through a state legislature controlled by Democrats -- and was signed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. That's a much easier path than Obama faces in Washington, where Senate Republicans and the NRA have all but stalled his gun control efforts.

Most of Obama's initial plan to curb gun violence in the wake of Newtown, including an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, has no hope of passing the Senate. The background check plan has little Republican support -- and even a less controversial measure to make gun trafficking a federal crime is now facing some resistance.

"I'll be blunt, a lot of members of Congress, this is tough for them," Obama said. 

As senators take up the bill next week, Obama plans to travel to Hartford, Conn., to call for stricter gun controls. Connecticut state lawmakers are currently considering one of the toughest new gun laws in the nation. 

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 4:22 PM EDT

Quite the alliance is forming on Capitol Hill. How about this grouping? Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, James Inhofe, and Marco Rubio.

Inhofe and Rubio (R-FL) have signed onto a letter threatening to filibuster any gun restrictions, according to Inhofe's office.

The letter was originally signed by tea party favorite Sens. Paul (R-KY) and Lee (R-UT), and joined by Cruz (R-TX).

It reads:

Dear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,

We, the undersigned intend to oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people's constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens' right to self-defense. It speaks to history's lesson that government cannot be in all places at all times, and history's warning about the oppression of a government that tries.

We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will servce as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions.

The vowed opposition further complicates Democrats' efforts to pass gun legislation, post-Newtown, and makes it more likely that any effort will need Republican support to achieve the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.

Republican presidential hopefuls in 2016 shouldn’t fear that supporting immigration reform will threaten their chances of winning the GOP nomination, at least according to results from new focus groups released Thursday.

As the Republican Party wrestles with how – and whether – to advance comprehensive immigration reform that allows for a pathway to citizenship, new results from the conservative research group Resurgent Republic argues that presidential candidates shouldn’t worry about significant blowback in the 2016 primaries.

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Resurgent Republic commissioned focus groups, conducted by Republican pollster John McLaughlin, of Republican primary voters in Iowa and South Carolina – the two more conservative states of the three-state gauntlet (sandwiching New Hampshire) that traditionally open the presidential nominating process. The research sought to take primary voters’ temperature toward immigration reform, and understand the circumstances under which they could support reform.

The report found that primary voters in Iowa and South Carolina realize that deporting the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants estimated to currently reside in the United States is impracticable. And while those voters strongly support legal immigration, they are receptive to arguments about immigration reform.

The focus groups found that border security is “foundational” for Republican primary voters, and that any pathway to citizenship must be linked to rigid requirements – including fines and back taxes, learning the English language and passing a criminal background check (among other details). 

The findings are backed up by additional data. A Pew Research Center poll released this week found that 64 percent of Republicans believe undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States legally; 34 percent of Republicans are opposed to such a proposition. 

The results could be significant – not just for the ongoing debate over immigration reform in Congress, but for the GOP’s overall effort to reinvent itself and broaden its appeal, namely to Latino voters.

As recently as this past presidential election, Republican candidates used immigration as a wedge issue to distinguish themselves from other candidates – and primary voters played along. 

Immigration, for instance, was one of the few issues on which Mitt Romney could run to the right of his primary opponents, and appeal to conservatives. When Texas Gov. Rick Perry said his fellow Republicans “don’t have a heart” for opposing in-state college tuition for children who were brought to the U.S. illegally, his primary opponents, including Romney, piled on. (Perry subsequently called his remark “inappropriate.”)

The new research released Thursday argues, essentially, that such an exchange – which hurt Romney with increasingly influential Latino voters in the general election – need not happen again in 2016.

That’s an especially important point considering how some of the prime contenders for the 2016 GOP nomination have gone to bat for immigration reform, and a pathway to citizenship.

Alex Wong / Getty Images file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio addresses a Free State Foundation luncheon March 21, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for instance, has taken the lead in selling the Senate’s bipartisan immigration framework to skeptical conservatives. And Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., another potential contender for the nomination, added his voice earlier this month to the chorus of Republicans who broadly back a pathway to citizenship.

Other Republicans with potential presidential aspirations have been complimentary of those efforts. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee, has joined in the effort to help sell the Senate immigration proposal to more skeptical House Republicans. Ryan’s Badger State brethren, Gov. Scott Walker, told Politico in February that Republicans should embrace some process that gives undocumented immigrants a pathway to legalization.

It’s just as easy, though, to conceive of a candidate for the GOP nod in 2016 who disregards much of the advice in the Resurgent Republic report, and seeks to ingratiate him or herself with conservatives on the issue of immigration.

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Already, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Cuban-American conservative who’s won plaudits in conservative circles for his hard-charging first few months in Congress, has expressed vocal skepticism of immigration reform.

"I have deep, deep concerns about a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally," Cruz told the Dallas Morning News in a Q&A posted earlier this week. "And as a practical matter, if you want to see common sense immigration reform pass, insisting on a path to citizenship is the surest way to kill the bill."

The implications of the new research could face their first test far earlier than 2016, though.

Iowa and South Carolina, coincidentally, could both play host to competitive Republican primaries that test the issue of immigration reform.

In South Carolina, incumbent GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has worked assiduously in recent years to ward off a conservative primary challenge. But his involvement in the same bipartisan Group of Eight as Rubio could earn him the enmity of conservatives in his state who oppose immigration reform.

And in Iowa, immigration hardliner Steve King, a longtime congressman in the state, could seek the state’s open Senate seat in 2014.

Historic gay rights cases arrive at the Supreme Court this week as even opponents of same-sex marriage acknowledge that public opinion has shifted against them.

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As the court prepares for oral arguments in two cases – one challenging the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage, the other challenging the 1990s-era Defense of Marriage Act – the trickle of support among political leaders for marriage rights for gays and lesbians has continued to grow.

Speaking Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ralph Reed, the head of the socially conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, admitted that the political divide over same-sex marriage was “basically a jump ball.”

“It's clearly moved,” Reed said of popular opinion, though he disputed any notion that Americans have come to universally back same-sex marriage.

But the shifting politics appear to be accelerating even more quickly. When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally announced her support for same-sex marriage a few weeks ago, the announcement was met in some quarters by surprise – usually that Clinton hadn’t made such a pronouncement already.

On the cusp of this week’s oral arguments – and, potentially, a Supreme Court decision later this June dramatically expanding gay rights – more political notables have announced their support for marriage rights. 

Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat representing swing state Virginia, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday that he now backs gay marriage "because it is the fair and right thing to do." 

 "Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone," he wrote. 

Warner's comments came the day after Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from GOP-leaning Missouri, also announced her support for same-sex marriage. 

“My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my gay and lesbian friends, colleagues and staff embrace long-term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality,” McCaskill wrote Sunday evening on her tumblr page.

Missouri is one of 38 states that prohibits same-sex marriage, either through legislation, ballot initiative or state constitutional amendment. Those state-level prohibitions could still stand in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling, depending on how expansive the court’s eventual decision might be.

It’s also banned in Ohio, where Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s endorsement of same-sex marriage rights (prompted by his own son having come out as gay) earlier this month served as an even bigger watershed moment. Nine whole years after President George W. Bush proposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Portman – a member of the Bush administration, and a serious contender for the GOP’s vice presidential nomination in 2012 – had offered high-profile support to same-sex marriage.

Moreover, Bush’s own former political adviser, Karl Rove, said this weekend on ABC that he could envision a Republican candidate (though not necessarily the nominee) for president in 2016 supporting same-sex marriage. Already, Jon Huntsman, a 2012 contender for the GOP nod who could seek the nomination again in 2016, has announced his support for marriage rights.

And while the shift might hearten gays and lesbians who hope to marry their partners, the tide toward supporting same-sex marriage is certainly driven in part by political considerations. Fifty-one percent of Americans nationwide said in December’s NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll that they now support the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry. Just 30 percent of Americans backed marriage rights in spring of 2004, by comparison.

Republicans’ post-election autopsy last week noted, for instance, that “certain social issues are turning off young voters.”

“Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be,” the report read.

Political leaders looking to complete their political “evolution” on gay marriage (to borrow a phrase from how President Barack Obama described his own shift toward backing marriage rights) could receive political cover this summer. A Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalizes same-sex marriage across the country – a possible outcome, though not necessarily the likely one – could hasten the number of lawmakers who feel comfortable to publicly back same-sex marriage, or at the very least, abandon it as a wedge issue.

NBC's Carrie Dann contributed to this report. 

Chuck Todd, NBC’s incorrigible political director, took time out of his day following President Obama on his Mideast trip to answer questions from his legions of Twitter followers. The conversation ranged from his take on Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu to the the particulars of 2014 Senate races and University of Miami athletics (he’s a fan if you haven’t heard). Here are some highlights from the wide-ranging conversation:

There’s been plenty of talk among Washington Republicans about the need to recruit better candidates, the kind who will avoid cringe-worthy campaign moments that did in several GOP candidates last fall, and weighed down the party nationwide.

But there are already several conservatives gearing up for high-profile races over the next two years who threaten to stop that effort in its tracks.

Following the missteps of candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock – the Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana, respectively, who lost winnable Senate races after making roundly criticized comments about rape – establishment Republicans have been far more vocal about the need to rein in primary processes that produced such nominees.

The fact that 2012’s mistakes were not an aberration compounded Republicans’ worries. The same Tea Party fervor that produced rock stars like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio yielded Republican Senate nominees like Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck and Sharron Angle – GOP candidates regarded as having squandered good pickup opportunities in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada.

This week’s Republican National Committee report recommending ways to strengthen the party came out and said it bluntly: “Groupthink is an issue.”

But in races like this fall’s gubernatorial campaign in Virginia – along with several high-profile state races next fall – will offer direct tests of whether the GOP can finally navigate the narrow strait between conservative allegiance and electability in the general election.

The most immediate test will come this fall in Virginia, where Ken Cuccinelli is the candidate looking to keep the governor’s mansion in Republican hands for two consecutive terms for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Cuccinelli has long been a favorite of conservatives, having used his current office as state attorney general to launch court challenges to President Barack Obama’s health-care law. His reservoir of support on the right helped push Virginia’s relatively more moderate lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, out of the race. (Bolling subsequently weighed running as an independent candidate, but decided against it.)

And already, Cuccinelli has run his race in swing-state Virginia as an unabashed conservative. (His campaign-year manifesto, appropriately, is entitled “No Apologies.”) Whether that tack will work in a state that’s drifted toward the political middle – represented best by Obama’s wins there in 2008 and 2012 – is very much an open question, one which will be answered this fall.

Already, likely Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s campaign has revived a familiar playbook against Cuccinelli, seizing every opportunity to cast him as out-of-step with Virginia voters. The latest example came this week when a Democratic tracker released a video of Cuccinelli appearing to compare slavery to abortion during a speech last summer.

"Over time, the truth demonstrates its own rightness, and its own righteousness," Cuccinelli says in the clip. "Our experience as a country has demonstrated that on one issue after another. Start right at the beginning -- slavery. Today, abortion."

The McAuliffe campaign pounced.

“His comments reflect a career-long focus on an extreme ideological agenda that has nothing to do with Virginians’ top concern: the economy,” the Democratic candidate said. “Politicians who constantly create controversy on divisive social issues harm Virginia’s standing as one of the best states for business.”

And, looking ahead to some of next year’s campaigns, there are other GOP candidates who could follow in Cuccinelli’s steps and pose a challenge to Republicans’ efforts to seek out pitch-perfect nominees to wage successful campaigns in swing states.

Steve Helber / AP file photo

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli gestures as he talks about the Supreme Court decision on the health-care law during a press conference Thursday, June 28, 2012 in Richmond, Va.

In Iowa, Rep. Steve King has an inside track to the Republican nomination in next year’s Senate race, where he’ll be looking to pick up a seat for the GOP following the retirement of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. He survived a competitive re-election campaign last fall, an experience which he said hadn’t caused him to back off of his brand of unflinching conservatism. 

“I went through the toughest election of my life last fall. I had tracking cameras around me from St. Patrick’s Day through Nov. 6 … always focused on me, trying to get a second or a minute that they could use against me in an ad,” King said in his speech last week before CPAC, the gathering of conservative activists. “They’re in the business of trying to undermine and weaken us, and I didn’t back up on any principle.” 

Republicans are also nervously watching Michigan, where they’re trying to avoid the missteps of 2012, when Senate nominee Pete Hoekstra doomed his campaign early on with a racially-charged ad targeting Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. 

Already, several Republicans have bowed out from the race, easing the path for the libertarian-minded Rep. Justin Amash, should he decide to seek the nomination. Though his conservatism isn’t necessarily in the mold of Cuccinelli or King, Amash would almost certainly face the same efforts from Democrats looking to cast him as too conservative for the Great Lakes State. 

Just in his second term, Amash has exhibited a repeated willingness to ruffle fellow Republicans’ feathers, so much that he ended up being one of the four House Republicans stripped of their committee assignments by the GOP leadership this year. He told National Review in December that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would not be welcome in his district. And Amash was one of the lawmakers Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last week called “wacko birds” for their opposition to the Obama administration’s drone policy.

Amash was one of 10 Republicans who, on Thursday, voted against Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2014 budget because it didn’t go far enough in cutting spending. Another was Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, a deeply conservative Republican who’s the only officially announced GOP candidate in the state’s Senate race. 

He said in an interview earlier this month that his fellow Republicans aren’t doing enough to repeal Obamacare, despite the repeated votes to repeal part or all of the law. (It inevitably dies in the Senate, or would face a veto from Obama.) 

“There are a lot of Republicans who call themselves conservatives, who, in fact, are not,” Broun said. “We need to continue to, every few weeks, have a bill on the floor to repeal pieces of Obamacare as well as votes to repeal the whole law. President Obama will not sign a bill, but that’s the point.”

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Days after lawmakers sidelined a proposed assault weapons ban, Vice President Joe Biden and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday offered a stern warning to Congress: there are still political consequences for opposing the measure.

"Even though restrictions on military-style weapons will not be part of the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate, it will get a vote by the full Senate as an amendment to the bill. And everyone’s going to have to stand up and say yea or nay, and then the rest of us have to decide just how we feel about people and their stands," Bloomberg said at a New York press conference with Biden and several family members of children killed in last year’s Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.

Bloomberg urged members of the public to tell congressional opponents of the gun control measure that they will “support whoever runs against you, no matter who they are.”

"Congress just has to get some courage and it's up to us as Americans and as fellow human beings to give them that courage," he said.

For the billionaire mayor, that “courage” also means “cash.”  

Bloomberg has already put millions behind his efforts to elect lawmakers who support gun control -- and his aides say he plans to use millions more on ads to sway those who might vote against it.

Biden, in New York to meet with Bloomberg just days after the Senate dropped the assault weapons ban from its gun bill, insisted that public opinion has shifted on gun restrictions -- and that the political pressure from the gun lobby has been overstated.

"It must be awful, being in public office and concluding that even though you might believe you should take action that you can't take action because of the political consequence you face. What a heck of a way to make a living. What a heck of a way to have to, have to act," Biden said. "The message I want to get across, Mr. Mayor, is the risk does not exist as is exaggerated today."

A suite of new gun control restrictions is winding through Congress, with Senate Democrats set to outline a package that could include new school safety measures, universal background checks for gun buyers and tougher penalties for straw purchasing and gun trafficking. 

But it's already clear that the politics of gun control are still difficult -- and as the Newtown massacre fades into the national memory, it's only going to get harder. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week informed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein that the assault weapons ban she's championed for decades won't be included in the bill, all but dooming its chances.

Senators will still vote on the ban as an amendment to the bill, allowing advocates the chance to see who voted against it and giving red state Democrats the chance to show they're opposing Obama's gun restrictions. There will be a second, separate vote on an amendment to ban high-capacity magazines.

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:44 PM EDT

They both were elected in 2010 under the Tea Party banner after beating primary opponents favored by the Republican establishment. They’re both rising stars in the modern GOP, and, last weekend, they finished first and second place in a straw poll of conservatives’ pick of a presidential nominee for 2016.

And as they both maneuver to mount their own campaigns that year – or, at least, preserve the option of doing so – Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., must share the spotlight. Intentionally or not, they’re already jockeying to do so.

Both senators have carefully worked to build their national profiles following the 2012 election, using high-profile opportunities to plot slightly different paths toward the same goal.

On no issue is that more apparent than immigration.

Rubio had joined with three other Senate Republicans and four Senate Democrats in recent months to forge a bipartisan framework on a comprehensive overhaul to immigration laws that would provide undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship. The Florida senator embarked on a media tour in the weeks following the framework’s unveiling to sell the plan to skeptical conservatives, doing the legwork to build political cover for the plan (and gain valuable exposure to the Republican base in the meanwhile).

Paul made clear with a speech on Tuesday – in which he unveiled his own plan creating an eventual pathway to citizenship – that Rubio isn’t the only GOP player on the issue. 

“Immigration reform will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution,” Paul told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “I am here today to begin that conversation.” 

Both Paul and Rubio might support the broader goal of immigration reform; they both took strides to carve out public roles for themselves in the process. 

For her part, Rubio ally Ana Navarro said the notion of a rivalry between the two men was “overblown by the media.” 

“Rand Paul is a leader in the Republican Party, and he should add his voice to the debate on immigration. His voice can and does make a difference,” she said. “The bottom line is, this is not an issue Marco or any one senator individually can or should carry alone on his shoulders. The more people helping to carry the ball, the more likely we will cross the finish line.” 

But while the two senators might not share a formal rivalry, they are undoubtedly two of the GOP’s biggest stars right now whose utterances alone command attention.

Look no further than last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, where Paul and Rubio finished first and second, respectively, in the gathering’s closely-watched straw poll. A quarter of straw poll participants supported Paul and 23 percent threw their support behind Rubio. (The two gave back-to-back speeches on Thursday at CPAC.) The next closest finisher in the straw poll checked in at 7 percent.

The close finish between the two senators reflects all the work beyond immigration they’ve each done to burnish their profiles in 2013.

Republican leaders, of course, tapped Rubio to deliver their official response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address – a speech that was generally well received for its content, if ridiculed for the Florida senator’s awkward pause for a swig of bottled water.

Delivering the official Tea Party response to the State of the Union that very evening? None other than Paul.

Rubio has also built up his foreign policy credentials by taking a trip in February to Israel and Jordan, and delivering major policy addresses (including one about that trip abroad).

Paul, meanwhile, drew considerable attention for his filibuster of Obama’s nominee to head the CIA on March 6, a 13-hour affair that won him praise from fellow Republicans. (Rubio at one point appeared on the Senate floor to deliver his own remarks in favor of Paul’s efforts.)

"Rand has made progress with the filibuster," said Dave Carney, the chief strategist for Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential campaign and a political consultant based in the influential primary state of New Hampshire. "Neither one has huge advantage here as of now."

Both senators are undeniably positioning themselves with 2016 in mind. Paul is at least open about that, acknowledging his potential interest in seeking the Republican nomination (like his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas) in several interviews. The Iowa GOP on Tuesday announced that Paul would headline their Lincoln Day dinner, further stoking speculation.

Rubio’s team is quicker to downplay the Florida senator’s ambitions, dismissing any talk of a presidential campaign as far too premature, just a few months removed from the last campaign.

But as each of them jockey for pole position heading into 2016, it may fall to the differences between Rubio and Paul to distinguish themselves from each other. For starters, Paul tends to emphasize a more libertarian and cautious foreign policy, while Rubio has generally been more willing to strike hawkish tones.

Both senators’ CPAC speeches are also instructive in parsing out how they make their pitch to conservatives.

Paul made a firm appeal, for instance, to revolutionize the Republican Party, and return the GOP to its small-government, libertarian roots.

“They want leaders that won't feed them a line of crap or sell them short. They aren't afraid of individual liberty,” he said of the new generation of young conservatives, calling the current GOP establishment “stale and moss-covered.”

Rubio, by contrast, emphasized his own biography as the son of immigrants, and stressed aspirational tone in his speech to CPAC.

“We don’t need a new idea, the idea is America, and it still works,” the Florida senator said.

A ban on assault weapons won't be included in major gun legislation set to take shape this week -- all but guaranteeing it won't pass Congress.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a onetime ally of the National Rifle Association, informed California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Monday that the proposal to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines won't be included in a broad package of new gun laws that's taking shape this week and will be considered on the Senate floor in April.

"People say well, are you disappointed? Obviously I'm disappointed," Feinstein told reporters Tuesday. Feinstein has worked on gun violence issues for decades.

The move waters down President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s push for broad new gun control in the wake of the shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults.

The Senate still plans to vote on the ban, but only as an amendment to the larger gun bill. Feinstein also asked for a second vote on a measure that would just ban high capacity magazines for assault weapons; that's likely to garner more support.

Why is the ban being dropped? According to Democratic leaders, it has no chance of passing -- and if it were included, Democrats wouldn't even be able to bring it up on the Senate floor for debate.

Just bringing a bill up for consideration requires all senators to agree, and if just one objects, then it takes 60 votes to keep the process moving forward.

"Right now her amendment, using the most optimistic numbers, has less than 40 votes. That's not 60," Reid told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday.

Putting an assault weapons bill into a broad package of gun laws -- instead of insisting that Feinstein offer it as an amendment  -- could have helped it earn more votes. But the ban is so controversial, including it would have likely doomed other gun restrictions that have some bipartisan support.

The NRA has been outspoken in opposing the ban, instead spending the months since Newtown calling for armed guards in schools.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

Sen. Dianne Feinstein arrives at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the assault weapons ban in Washington on Feb. 27, 2013.

“The enemies on this are very powerful. I've known that all my life,” Feinstein said Tuesday.

Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but it was allowed to expire when lawmakers didn’t renew it a decade later.

Despite renewed support for gun control after the massacre, the assault weapons ban was never expected to pass Congress. It's considered politically toxic even for Democratic senators from rural states -- especially for those who are facing re-election in 2016. And the White House is looking for a concrete set of accomplishments on the issue, not just doomed legislative stand.

Leaders are now considering how to shape the larger package and plan to release their bill this week. On the table are a bill to broaden background checks for gun buyers, a school safety measure and legislation to make gun trafficking and straw purchasing a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

The focus now is on background checks. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has been meeting with Republican senators in an attempt to hammer out a compromise to require all buyers to get a background check before they buy a gun. Talks with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., stalled after they couldn't agree on whether private sellers should have to keep records of their transactions.

The gun trafficking and school safety bills were both approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. 

NBC's Mike Viqueira contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:51 PM EDT

Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman's endorsement of same-sex marriage rights on Friday is the latest high-profile example of a sea change within the conservative movement toward gay rights.

A trickle of GOP leaders have begun to back the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry, and activists at the conservative movement's signature gathering this week express tolerance for Republicans who support same-sex marriage, even if they personally disagree.

Portman, an influential senator whom Mitt Romney almost selected last year as his running mate, announced that he had changed his position toward same-sex marriage because one of his sons is gay. 

"I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn't deny them the opportunity to get married," the Ohio senator wrote in an op-ed for the Columbus Dispatch. 

He's not the only high-profile Republican to back marriage rights for same-sex couples, either. 

Jon Huntsman, a GOP presidential candidate in 2012 who had endorsed civil unions, said this year that he supports marriage rights. Furthermore, he framed it in conservative terms. 

Related: Portman announces his support for same-sex marriage

"There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love," he wrote. 

And Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush, has been one of the lead attorneys challenging California's Proposition 8, a ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage in that state. (Portman fretted in his op-ed that a court decision might hamper the political movement toward legalizing gay and lesbian weddings.) 

Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images, file

Sen. Rob Portman attends the 2012 Fiscal Summit on May 15, 2012 in Washington.

And Fred Malek, a Republican power-broker, told NBC News this week that conservatives shouldn't feel threatened by gays and lesbian couples who wish to marry.

"I've always felt that marriage is between a man and a woman, but other people don't agree with that," he said. "People should be able to live their lives the way they choose. And it's not going to threaten our overall value system or our country to allow gays to marry, if that's what they want to do."

In response to the Portman endorsement, a spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner said, "Senator Portman is a great friend and ally, and the Speaker respects his position, but the speaker continues to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman."

It was a sentiment echoed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who said, "As a matter of personal religious conviction, I've always believed in marriage, I believe in the traditional marriage between a man and a woman.  But again, I think Senator Portman is entitled to his positions, and you know we are a party of diversity and, I think, of respect."

Gay rights is an issue that has changed rapidly in just a few years. President George W. Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and President Barack Obama had said he did not support same-sex marriage when he was first running for office in 2008. 

But Obama completed his "evolution" on gay rights (hastened by Vice President Joe Biden's inadvertent pronouncement of support for same-sex marriage) and announced his support for marriage rights last year. Romney had re-iterated his opposition to gay marriage at the time, but declined to use it as a cudgel versus Obama, calling same-sex marriage a "tender" issue. 

There's still resistance, though, to the issue. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, received a loud cheer on Thursday at this week's Conservative Political Action Conference when he said: "Just because I believe that states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot."

Nonetheless, the broader change reflects broader public opinion. A plurality of Americans — 47 percent — said they support same-sex marriage, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released earlier this month. Forty-three percent of Americans oppose same-sex marriage. Looking inside of those numbers, independents back marriage rights by a 12-point margin, and nearly a quarter of Republicans — 23 percent — said they support same-sex marriage. 

But while the GOP has been slower to embrace same-sex marriage, the party's internal struggle toward same-sex marriage was on display this week at CPAC.

While a gay Republican group, GOProud, was formally barred from sponsoring CPAC this year, an informal discussion organized by conservatives who support same-sex marriage was one of the most popular on the confab's first day. 

The split is undeniably generational, too; young conservatives here at CPAC are much more inclined to support same-sex marriage, even if they don't personally support it.

"I would say that the majority of my friends — it's not so much that we agree with it, it's just that we don't care," said Gabe Snyder, a 20-year-old college student from North Carolina in attendance at CPAC. He said he personally opposes same-sex marriage, but believed that a generational change was afoot.

"I think this generation coming up is going to be different from our parents," said Snyder.

And Renee Knight Leberry, from South Carolina, who also personally opposes same-sex marriage, said that she didn't think Portman's conservative credentials were diminished at all by his pronouncement on Friday.

"I respect him; it's his choice, and as a Christian conservative, I respect anybody's choice. That's his son, and he loves his son. I don't think it would be right to judge him for supporting his son."

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 10:48 AM EDT