WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama’s political influence a year after his election is being tested as voters cast ballots in Virginia and New Jersey, two states he’s worked hard to keep in Democratic hands. A handful of congressional and mayoral races and a same-sex union initative also are among the featured face-offs this Election Day.

Obama has sought to ensure that Democrats not only win the governor’s races but also pick up a GOP-held congressional seat in upstate New York. In doing so, Obama raised the stakes of a low-enthusiasm off-year election season – and risked political embarrassment if any lost.

All three could.

While political insiders in Washington and elsewhere focused on the political implications of the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, discussions on Twitter focused on the same-sex union initiative in Maine, with the phrases “VoteNoOn1″ and “Maine” landing in the site’s top trending topics. The measure would repeal a bill passed by the Legislature allowing same-sex marriages.

Heading into Tuesday’s elections, Democrat gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds was trailing Republican Bob McDonnell in polls by double digits in Virginia. In a three-way race in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine was in a close race with Republican Chris Christie and independent Chris Daggett. And in the race to fill the vacant 23rd Congressional District seat in New York, Democrat Bill Owens was in a tight fight with conservative Doug Hoffman after the GOP’s hand-picked candidate bowed out over the weekend.

Elsewhere, California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi is expected to maintain the Democratic Party’s hold on the open 10th Congressional District seat near San Francisco, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to cruise to a third term. Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh also will elect mayors, while voters in Maine and Washington weigh in on same-sex unions and voters in Ohio decide whether to allow casinos.

To be sure, it’s easy to overanalyze the results of such a small number of elections in a few places. The results will only offer hints about the national political landscape and clues to the public’s attitudes. And the races certainly won’t predict what will happen in the 2010 midterm elections.

“The results of these elections tend to be overread,” former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today.” “These are local races. There’s 18,000 lifetimes between now and next November.”

But, given that Democrats control the White House and Congress, defeats in Virginia – a new swing state in national elections – or New Jersey – a Democratic stronghold – would be setbacks for the White House, even though both states having long histories of electing governors from a political party opposite that of the president.

After all, this is a president who won a year ago in an electoral landslide after building a fundraising and organizational juggernaut that attracted scores of new voters into what Obama loyalists have called a movement. And this is a party that has comfortable majorities in the House and Senate – and that controls governor’s mansions in Virginia and New Jersey. As the Democratic Party chief, Obama had little choice but to work hard to elect Corzine and Deeds; doing otherwise would have been seen by the base as a breach of duty.

So, he campaigned several times for Corzine and raised money for Deeds. Obama also was featured in campaign advertisements for both. He characterized the success of their candidacies as key components for the White House to make good on its political promises and advance its agenda. And he deployed the Democratic National Committee and his own political campaign arm, Organizing for America, to ensure the swarms of new voters he attracted in 2008 turn out even if he’s not on the ballot.

Of the two races, a Republican victory in Virginia would be the most telling about potential trouble ahead for Democrats as they compete in swing states next fall. Long reliably Republican in national races, Virginia is a new swing state. It’s home to a slew of northern bellwether counties filled with swing-voting independents who carried Obama to victory last fall, the first Democrat to win the state in a White House race since 1964. Rapidly growing counties like Loudoun and Prince William swung toward Democrats in the 2005 governor’s race, previewing an Obama win three years later.

Conversely, New Jersey is a traditional Democratic-leaning state with an incumbent Democratic governor. As such, it’s the trickier of the two for Republicans to win – and yet the GOP just might.

By: SARAH HOYE
Media General News Service
One professor called it spiteful. Another said it was far-fetched.

Those were the reactions to a request by three Republican congressmen that President Barack Obama get the permission of Congress before he accepts the Nobel Peace Prize.

On Monday, U.S Reps. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida, Cliff Stearns of Florida and Ron Paul of Texas sent Obama a letter, first congratulating him, and then requesting him to “obtain Congress’ consent before formally accepting the Nobel Prize.”

The letter cites a provision of the U.S. Constitution they argue prohibits a president from accepting a gift from a foreign entity.

“With every great honor, however, comes great responsibility, not the least of which is the president’s constitutional responsibility to receive the consent of Congress before formally accepting this award,” Brown-Waite said in a statement.

Nonsense, say those familiar with law and politics.

Fletcher Baldwin, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Florida, said the letter “shows a very spiteful attitude.”

“First of all, we had two other presidents who sent letters to Congress saying, ‘Look, I won’t take the money,’” Baldwin said. “Teddy [Roosevelt] sent a letter … but certainly did not ask for permission from Congress.”

President Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 while in office for “brokering peace between Russia and Japan.” Roosevelt declined to keep the prize money and instead established a foundation, according to the Theodore Roosevelt Association.

Brown-Waite’s letter might have more to do with politics than presidential formalities, said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida.

“You might not like someone, but when someone gets an award, you let it go,” MacManus said. “Some of it has to do with their constituents, who are all older and from conservative districts.”

Brown-Waite did not return telephone calls Wednesday seeking comment.

Bruce Jacob, a professor of law at Stetson University, called the request “farfetched.”

The constitutional provision that was cited would not apply to the Nobel, Jacob said, and added that his donating of the funds actually strengthens the president’s case.

“I don’t think they’re [Nobel Foundation] acting as a foreign state. … They’re acting as a private body,” Jacob said. “Throughout history, presidents have accepted gifts and then turned them over; it’s common practice.”

Stearns disagrees.

“The Norwegian Parliament elects the Nobel Commission and, therefore, Nobel Prizes are awards presented by a foreign state. In addition, U.S. law (5 USC Title 7342) sets conditions under which the President and other federal employees can accept a gift from a foreign state without a separate action of Congress,” Stearns said in a statement.

The section of the Constitution cited by the letter should be interpreted to mean the president is not to be tainted or bribed, Baldwin said.

“I think it’s trivial,” he said.

Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for the creation of a “new climate in international politics,” the Nobel committee said. The president said he would donate the $1.4 million prize money to charity.

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama seriously considered Hillary Rodham Clinton for the vice presidency, even though his top aides weren’t enthusiastic about it, his presidential campaign manager says in a new memoir.

“Neither Ax (top-level adviser David Axelrod) nor I were fans of the Hillary option,” David Plouffe, who ran Obama’s 2008 race, said in his memoir, portions of which were published by Time magazine Thursday.

“What surprised me was that Obama was clearly thinking more seriously about picking Hillary Clinton than Ax and I had realized,” Plouffe wrote, describing a meeting the three had in late spring of last year when it became clear Obama would be the party’s standard-bearer.

Plouffe said that by early August, Obama had narrowed his list down to Sen. Joe Biden – now vice president – along with Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Tim Kaine of Virginia. Plouffe also wrote that “we had initially received a lot of advice from many of her (Clinton) supporters to pick her, though this ‘advice’ was perhaps more accurately described as subtle pressure.”

WASHINGTON  – A senior administration official says President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is inclined to send only as many more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as are needed to keep al-Qaida at bay.

The assessment comes from an official who has been involved in the president’s discussions with his war council about Afghanistan strategy. The official was authorized to speak to The Associated

Press about the discussions but not to be identified by name because the talks are ongoing.

Aides say the president’s final decision on Afghanistan strategy and troop levels is still at least two weeks away, but the emerging thinking suggests he would be unlikely to favor a large military ramp-up of the kind being advocated by his top commander in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON -  President Barack Obama will tell the nation in a prime-time address precisely how he wants to expand health care, including what his spokesman says will be a fresh argument for the much-debated government-run insurance option.

“What we’re going to hear tonight is, the president’s going to speak clearly and directly to the American people about what’s in this bill for them,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday.

Making the rounds of morning news shows, Gibbs said Obama will highlight his vision of a health care overhaul that secures the insurance people now have, makes affordable care accessible to those without it and cuts insurance costs for familie and small businesses.

Discussing Obama’s thinking, a senior administration official said the president will make a case for why he believes a government-run option is the best way to introduce greater competition into the system. The official, who discussed the speech on grounds of anonymity because preparations remain under way, also said Obama would offer to hear new ideas and he would not suggest any veto scenario at this time.

Even as Obama prepared to speak to a joint session of Congress and a live television audience, the leader of the influential Senate Finance Committee raced to broker a bipartisan agreement on
the president’s top domestic priority.

The White House set a high bar for the rare presidential address, acknowledging the huge stakes and creating big expectations about the level of specificity Obama would provide.

The president has stressed repeatedly the broad goals for the sweeping health care overhaul he seeks, but has left the details to lawmakers. Through a hot summer of angry debate, he lost his grip on the process.

Aiming to reclaim it at a pivotal moment and open a final push for a bill, Obama said, “We do intend to get something done this year.”

“I’m open to new ideas,” the president said in an interview Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in which he previewed the themes of his speech. “We’re not being rigid and ideological about this thing.”

Gibbs said the country needs “additional choice and competition so that those that are on the private insurance market aren’t just dealing with one competitor to try to get quality, affordable
insurance.”

“The public option is a way of putting a check on insurance companies,” he said.

Asked pointblank if Obama was preparing to demand a public option, Gibbs said only that he “will outline what he thinks the value of the public option is.”

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele dismissed the proposal in a separate interview, saying “the idea that the federal government can come in and be the same as Allstate in providing insurance, that’s ridiculous.”

Gibbs argued that a government-run option is “supported by a majority of people in this country” and said that currently “there’s nobody to compete” in a situation where a private health care insurance company dominates the market.

With Obama’s approximately 35-minute speech still being written, much by the president himself, White House officials said the president will “answer all the major questions” – including the sticky issue of how to pay for getting coverage for the 50 million Americans who lack it.

Obama will appear before lawmakers a day after their return from an August recess marked by contentious town halls and much misinformation and confusion about what a health care overhaul may look like.

A senior administration official said Obama has ceased worrying about whether he gets any Republican participation. “If they don’t want to, we can’t worry about that,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely discuss behind-the-scenes thinking.

But that is no longer Obama’s biggest difficulty, a fact underscored by the conflicting advice he was getting from within his own party.

Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition, said Obama should “appeal to both sides of the aisle, and to everyone involved in this situation, to embrace a sense of compromise and moderation.”

But Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, said he wanted Obama to state his unequivocal support for a government-run health insurance option to compete with private companies, and to clearly distance himself from the two alternatives now circulating.

One of those would structure a public plan so that it would be triggered only if private insurance companies weren’t providing enough affordable choices in certain areas; the other would set up nonprofit co-ops. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, circulated a proposal that would cost $900 billion over 10 years and guarantee coverage for nearly all Americans, regardless of medical problems. Fees on insurers, drug companies and others in the health care industry would finance tax credits to help expand coverage. Baucus’ panel is the only one of the five involved in health care not to complete a bill yet, and the only one still searching for a bipartisan compromise.

One provision would fine families up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance, essentially requiring that everyone have medical coverage, much like the case with car insurance. Obama rejected a mandate, and fines, during his presidential campaign.

Baucus asked his “Gang of Six” bipartisan negotiators to report back with suggestions by Wednesday morning. “I made that clear, that the bipartisan effort will have more effect if there’s
agreement prior to the president’s address,” he said.

But few appeared ready to do as Baucus wants and move before hearing from the president. “That’s the cart before the horse, as they say in Maine,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican being courted by the White House.

Like bipartisanship, prospects for a public insurance plan also dimmed. It is not in Baucus’ plan, and two prominent House Democrats backed away from it Tuesday.

It is this issue that has become Obama’s main quandary: Liberal lawmakers say they won’t vote for legislation that doesn’t include a public plan. But Republicans and many moderate Democrats won’t vote for one with it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Obama told her and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during a White House meeting Tuesday that his message would essentially be: “If you have a better idea, put it on the table.”

Gibbs appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and CBS’s “The Early Show,” and Steele was interviewed on the “Today” show.

BY CIVITAS
RALEIGH, N.C. – With President Barack Obama set to address Congress Wednesday evening to plead his case for overhauling the health insurance and health care industry, a new Civitas Flash Poll released today finds voters deeply divided on their support for the plan.

According to the poll of 662 registered voters, nearly an identical number support the proposal as oppose it.  Of those surveyed, 47.6 percent said they somewhat or strongly supported the health care reform plan presented by President Obama and Congressional Democrats, 47 percent of voters said they were opposed to the plan and 5.4 percent said they were unsure.

“The health care proposal by the President and Congress has deeply divided the nation,” said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute.  “Feelings on the plan are quite intense, with very few people in the middle.  Basically, you either support the plan or you abhor it.”

A reflection of the deep divisions is that roughly three-fourths of voters said they either strongly supported (35.4%) or strongly opposed (40.6%) the plan.

“Candidate Obama pledged to be a uniting force for our country.  However, the actions and proposals by President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are driving the nation apart,” added De Luca.

Additionally, only 20.5 percent of voters think the cost of health care will go down and 27.3 percent of voters think the quality of their health care will get better if the President’s plan passes.

“Regardless of their support of the President’s proposals, very few think it will actually make things better.  It’s apparent much of the President’s support on the plan is not from people who think it will improve health care, but from their personal support of him,” concluded De Luca.

The Civitas Flash Poll study of 665 registered voters was conducted September 2-3 by Insider Advantage of Atlanta, Georgia.  It has a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percent.  Other factors such as weighting may introduce additional error.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.

That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

WASHINGTON  – The patient isn’t dead yet.

A few more months of wrangling and indecision, and health care legislation to remedy America’s coverage and costs problem could be drawing its last gasps.

As Congress returns to work this week, President Barack Obama and lawmakers have three broad options – competing treatment plans for a patient whose vital signs are growing weak. It’s not clear which one, if any, will work.

Democrats – and liberals in particular – want heroic measures and large scale intervention. They think the legislation needs big new ideas such as a public insurance plan that would have government offering coverage to middle-class workers and their families.

Republicans want a conservative treatment to relieve the worst symptoms of America’s health care malaise. They’re proposing help for small business owners and the self-employed, and some GOP lawmakers probably could go along with expanding current programs that cover the poorest of the poor. But no new government plan and no guarantees that everyone would be covered.

A third group, including moderates from both parties, supports a holistic approach that would put the country firmly on track to coverage for all. They believe government should help some middle-class people through subsidies for private coverage, but that a federal insurance plan isn’t needed. Some are willing to include malpractice changes that appeal to conservatives.

Obama will say which way he wants to go when he addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.

Above all, the president wants to avoid failure. But an argument on the merits may fail to persuade lawmakers polarized by the town hall brawls of August.

If nothing gets done, “it’s a disaster politically” for the Democrats, said Gerald Shea, the AFL-CIO’s top health care policy expert. “Unfortunately, I think that’s what’s behind a lot of the Republican opposition.”

The action will speed up once Congress is back.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus, says he’s ready to march ahead. For months, Baucus, D-Mont., has tried to reach a compromise within a small but influential group of senators from both parties. He faces a Sept. 15 deadline, and has signaled he’ll move with or without a deal.

His committee would be the last one to consider health care legislation before the full House and Senate take over.

Deliberations in the Finance Committee are seen as a critical test because it reflects the composition of the Senate as a whole.

In the House, Democratic leaders have indicated they will not schedule a vote until the end of September. Many House members don’t want to stick their necks out if it looks like the Senate is hopelessly deadlocked. Still, once House Democrats decide to go forward, they should be able to pass their bill.

There won’t be any guarantees in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass legislation of any consequence. It doesn’t look like Democrats have them right now.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will try to meld the Finance Committee’s bill with legislation written by liberals on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee before he takes something to the full Senate. Debate could last for weeks, with hundreds of amendments.

Reid’s most important decision will be whether to use a maneuver that allows the Senate to pass the financing elements of the bill with just a simple majority. Even so, he’d probably still need 60 votes to pass companion legislation with other essential elements -such as how people would buy their health insurance.

The shortcut strategy could backfire politically. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Sunday his constituents are already concerned that Congress is rushing things. “If we went to some sort of a parliamentary shortcut, I think they would be even more alarmed than they are right now,” Nelson told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Even if the legislation clears every hurdle, it could be Christmas before it reaches Obama’s desk. Republicans say Congress should scrap what’s been done so far and start over, without deadlines.

“There don’t seem to be any checks and balances on a runaway government in Washington, D.C.,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. An immigration overhaul fell under its own weight during the last administration, and “health reform seems to be doing the same.”

For all the disagreements, the core elements of the congressional bills are similar.

They would set up a new purchasing pool to make it easier for individuals and small businesses to buy insurance, and offer government subsidies to make premiums more affordable. People would be required to get health coverage, through an employer, a government program, or on their own. Businesses that don’t offer coverage would have to contribute in some way.

The changes are complicated, and it would take the better part of a decade to phase them all in. The cost – offset by spending cuts and tax increases – is about $1 trillion over 10 years.

As the scope of the legislation has gotten clearer, more voters seem to be having second thoughts. Polls show that support for action this year plunged over the summer, from 61 percent in June to 53 percent in August, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

Obama is hoping he can turn that around. If he doesn’t, lawmakers worried about getting re-elected next year will have another option to consider: Should they pull the plug?

WASHINGTON – The furor surrounding President Barack Obama’s upcoming address to the nation’s schoolchildren is “just silly,” his education chief said Sunday, and a conservative senator who led the Education Department in the first Bush administration suggested teachers make it a civics lesson.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s department has taken heat for proposed lesson plans distributed to accompany Tuesday’s speech. He acknowledged that a section about writing to the president on how students can help him meet education goals was poorly worded. It has been changed.

Debate about conservative objections to the speech has dominated cable television and talk radio for several days, signaling again the stark divisions in the country both over politics and social issues.

Some opponents to the speech claim Obama would try to indoctrinate schoolchildren with what they call his “socialist” agenda.

“That’s just silly. They can go to school. They can not watch. It’s just, you know, going an 18-minute speech,” Duncan said.

He said Obama had no intention beyond talking “about personal responsibility and challenging students to take their education very, very seriously.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander, education secretary under President George H.W. Bush, said he understood “some of the concern, because, you know, people say, `Oh, here’s another Washington takeover.’

“But of course the president of the United States should be able to address students. And of course, parents and teachers should decide in what context,” said Alexander, R-Tenn.

He added, “If I were a teacher, I’d take advantage of it, and I’d put up Lincoln and Eisenhower and Reagan and teach about the presidency, and then I’d put up the head of North Korea and say, ‘In that country, you go to jail if you criticize the president. In our country, you have a constitutional right to do it.”‘

Duncan said the guides distributed to schools “were put out by teachers, for teachers. And there is one that wasn’t worded quite correctly. It was talking about helping the president hit his goal of having the highest percent of college graduates by 2020. He’s drawn a line in the sand in that.

“We just clarified that to say write a letter about your own goals and what you’re going to do to achieve those goals. So again it’s really about personal responsibility and being accountable, setting real goals and having the work ethic to see them through,” the secretary said.

Declaring that viewing the speech is “purely voluntary,” Duncan said the hubbub is something “I frankly don’t pay any attention to.” Rather, he said, he is focused “laser-like” on the big problems in the U.S. education system.

The secretary said the speech text will be posted on the White House Web site on Monday.

“There’s nothing political about it, and it’s a shame that some people have tried to politicize it,” Obama adviser David Axelrod added.

Duncan spoke on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and Alexander appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” Axelrod was on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”