Chaos breeds opportunity, and after 32 years in DC, I’ve seen this several different times. It’s highly cyclical and the last big crack-up was after the embarrassing defeat of George H.W. Bush at the hands of Bill Clinton. I sank on that Titanic and, out of that chaos, came a consulting firm and lots and lots of gigs.

Did it take time? absolutely. But keep in mind the dispirit in the GOP after Bill Clinton’s win was wiped out just one cycle in the ’94 landslide.

The structural upheaval in the GOP will continue for some time, and am hardly predicting a 1994-like resurgence; the demographic trends are a powerful factor working against us in the current GOP Party construct.

But for any teenager of young twenty-something wanting to get involved and earn their way up the ladder, now is as good a time to make a mark as I’ve seen in 20 years. Campaigns are among the most upwardly mobile professions in existence. Campaign intern one day, congressional, gubernatorial or presidential staffer the next. Make it happen.

Kasich statement in release of his proposed state budget: “While a complex decision, this reform not only helps improve the health of vulnerable Ohioans and frees up local funds for better mental health and addiction services, but it also helps prevent increases to health care premiums and potentially devastating impacts to local hospitals. Additionally, it avoids leaving Ohioans’ federal tax dollars on the table and keeps the federal government from simply giving them away to other states. Importantly, Ohio will roll back this extension if the federal government changes the rules.”

Despite the odds of major entitlement reform are now far less than 50/50, Politico, National Journal and other new reporting indicates there are several structural savings opportunities through proposals already on the shelf at influential progressive think tanks in Washington. The menu is as follows:

Social Security: ‘Chained CPI’ — Savings: $112 billion

The idea is to change the way the government figures out how much more seniors should get in Social Security benefits each year to account for changes in their cost of living. This new formula — a tweak to the consumer price index — would assume that people switch their buying habits when prices rise, rather than just buying the same things over and over. So, for example, if the price of ground beef goes up, someone might buy chicken or fish instead. The result: Social Security benefits will rise more slowly.

Social Security: Lift cap on taxable earnings – Revenues: $500 billion or more

Even if the Democrats accept chained CPI, they’re going to want something in return. One big one: Let the highest earners pay more Social Security payroll taxes. Lift the cap so 90 percent of all Americans’ earnings are taxed — it’s only about 83 percent now — and a Social Security deal could raise about $550 billion in revenues over the next 10 years, according to estimates by Third Way, which has endorsed the approach. It would also wipe out Social Security’s deficit through 2020.

Medicare: Expanded means testing — Savings: $20 billion

Obama has said he won’t consider Medicare changes that would shift costs to seniors, but an expansion of the program’s means testing is the one benefit cut Democrats have hinted they might accept <http://politi.co/WfWdNI>  — because it would hit wealthier seniors and spare the rest. There’s already some means testing of premiums for Medicare coverage of doctors and prescription drugs, thanks to Obamacare and the 2003 law that created the Medicare prescription drug program. The version that Obama proposed in his 2011 deficit plan and could put on the table again, would extend that means testing to charge higher premiums and hit a larger group of seniors.

Medicare: Faster payment reforms — Savings: $10 billion

Republicans often complain that Democrats don’t want to make any real changes to bring more money into Medicare — they just want to keep cutting payments to providers. But there’s no real controversy over Obamacare’s incentives to provide more efficient medical care, and that’s where some on the left think there’s potential for common ground — by just beefing up those experiments.

Medicare: Drug rebates — Savings: $135 billion

One of Obama’s biggest Medicare savings ideas would come straight out of the pockets of drug companies — which means he’d face a fight, but probably not from Democrats. Right now, pharmaceutical companies have to pay a rebate when the government buys prescription drugs for people on Medicaid but not for low-income seniors who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. The proposal, which Obama included in his deficit plan, would make the drug manufacturers give the same rebates for these “dual eligibles,” adding up to huge savings for Medicare.

Why? State budget realities.

States that are refusing to expand Medicaid — like Texas — are hurting their hospitals by giving up funds that could help offset their uncompensated care, Dan Mendelson, president and CEO of Avalere Health, said at a POLITICO Pro breakfast briefing this morning.

“That’s very close to $2 billion for Texas hospitals,” Mendelson said. “They are severely disadvantaging their providers if they don’t take the expansion in the early years.”

He’s right. And it’s not just hospitals impacted — it’s also skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), which are America’s second largest health facility employer.

Critics are still fighting the law in court on several fronts, and Barnett hasn’t given up hope that one of those challenges could succeed. But the more Obamacare benefits become available to people, the harder it is to undo.

There’s no question that one of the reasons why we had as much room to run as we did is we had a two-year delay in implementing most of the law, he said, referring to the multi-state lawsuit he helped fight. Had more of the health law been up and running, it would’ve been much more difficult for us to even make the challenge. That opening is closing.

Some of Barnett’s allies in the Supreme Court case seemed to indicate as much with their silence. Michael Carvin and Paul Clement, two of the other lead attorneys, said they were not tracking other anti-Obamacare litigation and declined to comment to Politico. That’s good news for the law’s backers.

Randy Barnett is right. He’s a legal scholar with a relationship to reality, said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for American Now. I think that courts don’t like to undo programs that are already being implemented that are impacting millions of people, especially when the highest court in the land found the law to be constitutional. Revisiting parts of it is obviously political and ideological.

The basics of the analysis:

The 2012 election marks the year when the inexorable march of demographic change caught up with the Republican Party. While multiple factors led to President Obama’s reelection, none was as important as rapidly increasing demographic change in the American electorate. Mitt Romney won white voters by a landslide, 59 to 39 percent, in the process achieving the highest percentage of the white vote of any Republican
challenging an incumbent president in the history of exit polling. Yet that was not enough to craft a majority of the popular vote.

Resurgent Republic’s 2012 post-election survey polled 1000 likely voters nationally, starting on the night of the election, November 6, and concluding on Thursday, November 8. The results were weighted to conform to the popular vote outcome of 50 percent for Obama and 48 percent for Romney. Following are key highlights of the survey. Full results are available at resurgentrepublic.com.

Structure of the Electorate from Exit Polls

1. The 2012 electorate contained the smallest share of white voters and the largest share of nonwhite voters in American history. White voters constituted 72 percent of the electorate, down from 74 percent in 2008, 77 percent in 2004, and 81 percent in 2000.

African-Americans made up the next largest share at 13 percent, the same as 2008, and up from 11 percent in 2004 and 10 percent in 2000.

Hispanics constituted 10 percent of the electorate in 2012, compared to 9 percent in 2008, 8 percent in 2004, and 7 percent in 2000.

Asian voters made up 3 percent of the 2012 electorate, an increase from 2 percent each in 2008, 2004, and 2000.

2. Mitt Romney won a larger share of the white vote than either John McCain or George W. Bush. Romney defeated Obama by 59 to 39 percent among whites, compared to McCain winning whites by 55 to 43 percent over Obama in 2008, while Bush won whites by 58 to 41 percent over John Kerry in 2004 and by 54 to 42 percent over Al Gore in 2000.

3. Mitt Romney won white voters in almost all demographic groups, usually by substantial margins. Romney’s campaign was extremely successful at appealing to white voters across the board, and won almost all white groups except Jewish voters.

Even though seniors reject the Medicare-reform proposal Romney has endorsed, Kaiser finds, they trust him more than they do President Obama when it comes to the future of the program. Forty-eight percent of seniors trust Romney, compared with 43 percent who trust Obama.

Compare that to the numbers on policy: 72 percent of seniors think Medicare should stay as it is, while only 18 percent would prefer the Romney system.

Seniors are a key part of Romney’s coalition, and Democrats had hoped they could use Romney’s Medicare positions to their advantage with that segment of the electorate.

It remains to be seen, however, how the issue plays in the toss-up Senate and House contests.

Charlie Cook’s briefing for National Journal members this week was instructive in that he generally trashed the cacophony of polling in general and IVR polls in particular. Cook bemoaned the fact that in many Senate races, for example, “well over half” of the data reported in the media is IVR-oriented.

With the preponderance of IVR polls and response rates for live caller surveys down into single digits per 100 calls, the polling industry is seemingly at a crossroads as we close the 2012 election cycle.

Adding to the confusion is the cell phone mix of the sample, with different pollsters using different formulas to achieve what they feel to be the right percentage versus land line phones.

Until election day, we won’t be able to assess the accuracy of various data. Regardless, it seems like we’ve reached a fork in the road in terms of how pollsters will pursue their craft to achieve maximum accuracy at a time when so many variables add to the ongoing confusion.

While Allen has time to focus his message, anyone paying close attention to the advertising dialogue in the DC media can see Kaine outgunning Allen on TV. Yes, Crossroads, the Chamber of Commerce and others are doing their part to attack Kaine, but the positive case for Allen is missing — and that’s essential.

The Allen campaign has noted it is attempting to save money for the end game, but it’s pretty clear he’s under performing in Northern Virginia and the primary reason is he’s nowhere to be seen on the airwaves — especially as Romney and Obama totally dominate the advertising landscape.

One NRCC operative was quoted as predicting the Democrats would retreat on Medicare, and that the GOP had turned a corner on the always controversial and dangerous issue. As Charlie Black noted, if we could ‘break-even’ on Medicare, we’d be doing quite well.

But that was then. Now? GOP candidates are well advised to fight back on the issue, but not lead with it.

That was always the best approach, and the initial glow of the first Ryan offensive has clearly worn off.