Tuesday's Starting Lineup

Good Tuesday morning. Ready to get back to work, all you Beltway slackers who stayed home yesterday? Oh, right, that whole "more snow coming" thing. When's the next RNC meeting in Honolulu?

Here's Tuesday's Starting Lineup, taking a look at the people making headlines today and their impact on the nation's political landscape:

REP. JOHN MURTHA: The longtime Johnstown Congressman passed away yesterday at the age of 77 after complications from gallbladder surgery. Few members not in House leadership were better-known, or more contentious, and for 36 years his presence was felt on Capitol Hill.

We'll bring you a round-up of obituaries later today, but for early reading, check out the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, the Washington Post and a long obit from Politico's David Rogers.

Murtha's passing puts another Dem-held seat in play, and it will lead to a promotion for Reps. Norm Dicks (D-WA) and Jim Moran (D-VA) on the House Appropriations Committee. Dicks will take over Murtha's Defense Subcommittee, where the 2 long worked together, while Moran will likely move up a spot and take over Dicks' Interior and Environment Subcommittee. We'll have more on these moves and on the race for Murtha's seat later today.

HOUSE MIN. LEADER JOHN BOEHNER: Pres. Obama is set to meet with bipartisan leaders at the WH today to discuss jobs legislation, but top GOPers are angry about another WH get-together, set for Feb. 25. Boehner and House Min. Whip Eric Cantor are upset that Pres. Obama will begin the health care summit by discussing Dem bills, rather than scraping everything and starting over.

"If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate," Boehner and Cantor wrote in a letter to WH CoS Rahm Emanuel. WH press sec. Robert Gibbs returned fire, promising Obama wouldn't "walk away from reform."

But Boehner stands as the political winner in the back-and-forth. Many GOPers get credit for delaying a health care bill that once seemed inevitable, and their success has given Dems serious headaches. By starting over -- heck, even by going back to the process of examining reform proposals, a step Dems were taking last spring -- GOPers are tying the albatross around Dems' necks once again. The more health care is in the news, the less jobs legislation is, meaning the less credit the WH gets, even if they pass a bipartisan bill that works.

FL GOV. CHARLIE CRIST: Crist, the young and ambitious, talented chief of the nation's 4th-largest state, was untouchable, and he's raised the money to prove it. But the popular facade masked an anger that conservatives feel toward him, and now that Crist needs those conservative voters, they're not there.

Several polls now have shown Crist trailing ex-state House Speaker Marco Rubio (R), and national conservatives are coming to Rubio's aid. He raised $1.75M last quarter, almost as much as Crist did, and he's got support from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and, as of yesterday, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the House GOP Conference chair. Pence has proven prescient with his endorsements beforehand; during the fall, he pointedly refused to endorse Assemb. Dede Scozzafava (R) in NY-23, just weeks before her candidacy collapsed.

To avoid a similar drop-off in support, Crist has to do something new, and he had better start sooner rather than later. Crist is abandoning his plans to address GOP clubs exclusively, instead making his first real campaign swings to get his base, to borrow a phrase, fired up and ready to go.

But, just as he embarks on his new tour, Crist will face more heat: Tomorrow, Rubio holds a rally in Ft. Myers on the 1 year anniversary of Crist's attendance at a town hall meeting where he supported Pres. Obama's stimulus package, the main impetus for Rubio's run for office. The primary isn't until Aug., and Crist isn't going to face an easy time as he campaigns to win back skeptical voters.