Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will take the lead in entitlement reform talks with Democrats thanks largely to the process by which the fiscal cliff deal came about. It appears that many Republicans think that it strategically benefits them if the process begins in the Senate with Boehner kept in the loop by McConnell. Speaker Boehner has said he will not negotiate with Obama on a one on one basis anymore. The Hill: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is poised to play a bigger role in negotiations to reform entitlement programs in the wake of the tax deal he helped forge last week.  Lawmakers see the passage of a bill to extend most of the Bush-era income tax rates and settle the question of estate, capital gains and dividend tax rates as a template for how to move the next installment of deficit reduction.  That would mean moving bipartisan legislation first in the Senate and put McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky, in the driver's...(Read Full Post)