Politico

By JAKE SHERMAN

As Democrats frantically tried to cobble together votes to pass their sweeping health care reform legislation Saturday, House Republicans began a victory lap of sorts.

First, in a meeting of the House Republican Conference, the GOP’s leadership rallied the troops with flourishing rhetoric about regaining the majority in the fall.

“I don’t know, quite frankly, whether victory will come on the third Sunday in March or on the first Tuesday in November, but victory will come,” House Republican Conference leader Mike Pence of Indiana told Republicans Saturday afternoon.

And when they emerged from the room to speak to the media and a crush of video cameras, House Republican leaders were met by a boisterous crowd of citizens screaming “kill the bill” and nodding in unison to their promises to continue the fight to derail the legislation.

Saturday’s schedule gives an idea of how confident Republicans are feeling. Republicans opened up their closed conference meeting to television cameras and reporters, GOP lawmakers were hosting telephone town halls in Democratic swing districts and Republicans were whipping undecided Democrats to vote against the legislation they’ve been wrangling over for more than a year.

This all comes after a week where House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio gave a series of interviews expressing confidence that Republicans could take back the House in November.

“There are more activities going on than you would see in a normal campaign,” Boehner told reporters.

Boehner, who helped orchestrate the 1994 GOP takeover of the House, was somewhat of a rock star Saturday. He ditched his black SUV for a trip back from the Cannon House Office building to the Capitol, crossing Independence Avenue on foot to waves of cheers. He posed for a photo – the unfortunate gentleman’s camera was full – and even kissed a woman on a motorized scooter.

Perhaps the most stunning – and unscripted – moment for Republicans came when they emerged from their conference meeting to a stakeout point that’s typically filled with a handful of Capitol Hill reporters. Roughly 100 citizens gathered in the Cannon rotunda – held back by Capitol Police officers – cheering the GOP’s leadership.

The rhetoric was hardly new – Republicans rehashed many of the same lines they’ve been using for about a year. But judging by the crowd’s response, it seemed as if the party’s leadership had spontaneously topped Shakespeare.