One of the Democratic senators who was on the fence when it came to backing a public option for health insurance coverage is coming out in support of the measure.

On Thursday, Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) offered her support for the health care overhaul proposal put forth by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, of which she is a member. In the process, she issued a statement that removed any doubt about where she stands on a publicly run insurance option.

"My colleagues and I on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have been working on a plan to reform the health care system in this country," Hagan's statement read. "We have crafted a plan that will stabilize health care costs and includes a Community Health Insurance Option, which I support. It is a backstop option for people without access to affordable coverage. Health care providers will not be required to participate, payment rates will be set in a competitive fashion, and the community health insurance option will compete on a level playing field with private health insurance plans in the gateway."

The public plan portion of the proposal, known as the Community Health Insurance Option, would be overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, but follow the rules set forth by the private market. At the same time, it would lower the costs of health care by pooling the purchasing powers of its participants and it would drastically lower the administrative costs customary to private providers. In short, one source on the committee said, it is the robust proposal that progressive wanted. And now Hagan, as her office confirmed to the Huffington Post, supports it.

For days, even weeks, the North Carolina Democrat had been pinpointed as a possible roadblock towards getting a strong public option out of the HELP committee. Progressive groups were running advertisements in her state to compel her to support the provision. Local pressure on the Senator was intense as well as it was widely believed that she was trying to water down the public option during the committee's drafting process.

In the end, Democrats say, Hagan was much more solid on the idea than media reports were letting on.

"The Left is wrong about Sen. Hagan on this," said a Senior Democratic staffer. "For others to attack her as standing in the way of progress on public choice just isn't right. She worked right up to the wire with other Democrats on the Committee. In the end, it will be plan they created together that will pass the Senate, guarantee access to affordable coverage for those who don't have it and preserve the options of those who do."

The White House acknowledged on Thursday that some members of the administration may have been invited to high-priced "salons" sponsored by the Washington Post and featuring corporate executives and lobbyists. But in his daily briefing with the press, spokesman Robert Gibbs said that no one, to his knowledge, had accepted the invitation and that the administration's ethics policy most likely would have prevented them from doing so.

"I think some people in the administration writ large may have been invited," Gibbs acknowledged towards the end of Thursday's briefing. "I do not believe, based on what I have been able to check, that anyone has accepted the invitation. Obviously the [White House] Counsel would have to review an invitation like this, and I think it would likely exceed what the counsel would -- the Salon that the Washington Post is offering would likely exceed what [administration] would feel in this case would be appropriate."

The admission that administration officials were likely contacted to attend the proposed Washington Post gatherings is another interesting tidbit in a story that has consumed much of the journalism and political wor.d on Thursday. Early in the morning, Politico reported that the Post was arranging a series of gatherings that would bring together newspaper officials, lobbyists, industry executives and White House officials for a price ranging from $25,000 to $250,000.

Several reporters at the paper told the Huffington Post that they were outraged by the news, having not been told in advance that management or the business side of the operation were considering the salon idea. Even if they did not partake in the events, these journalists felt that having representatives of industries and companies the paper was tasked with covering pay for access to its staff would irrevocably compromise their credibility. For the Obama White House, the association with lobbyists at these salon events would also create a host of ethical dilemmas.

The issue was made moot (at least for the time being) Thursday afternoon, when Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth canceled the planned events.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination for the Supreme Court has hit a small snag as high-ranking Republicans in the Senate are demanding that more information be provided about her past work and associations.

The complaints are common fare for presidential nominations -- a political tactic designed to draw out the nomination process in hopes that more dirt can be found. In some instances, there is a compelling public interest in drawing out that additional information.

That said, it's worth looking back a few years to recall just how disinterested the Bush White House and GOP Senators were in complete disclosure when it came to a Supreme Court nominee of their own.

In late 2005 and early 2006, Democrats in the Senate were demanding that Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito provide additional material pertaining to his service at the Office of the Solicitor General. Then ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote two separate letters to the Department of Justice requesting those files. His efforts were rebuffed.

"Judge Alito and the Department have already provided to the Committee a voluminous set of documents relating to Judge Alito's decades of public service," read the response from then Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella. "Judge Alito has sat on the federal appellate bench for more than 15 years, and his decisions in that capacity represent the best evidence of his judicial philosophy and of the manner in which he approaches judicial decision-making."

As the remarks suggest, it was the position of the Bush White House and its Justice Department that the Senate had sufficient material by which to assess Alito's resume. Moschella would go on to note that the Judiciary Committee had been "provided with a list of the more than 1,000 published decisions issued by panels on which Judge Alito sat, including the more than 340 opinions Judge Alito wrote." There were, in addition, concerns expressed that revealing more information from Alito's tenure at the Office of Solicitor General would compromise that Department's ability "to litigate cases effectively on behalf of the United States."

That said, calls for more material from Alito's background, whether they pertained to his work at OSG or on other issues were more often than not dismissed as pure politics by the administration's defenders. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex) said that demands for an explanation as to why Alito had not released information about the work he did in the 1980s to undercut Roe v. Wade were "manufactured hysteria." Nearly a month later, almost 300 additional documents from Alito's time at Justice Department -- which hadn't been previously made public -- were finally released.

With Sotomayor, the current complaint by GOP lawmakers is that she has revealed too little information with regard to her affiliation with the Puerto Rico Legal Defense Fund. The civil rights organization turned over more documents on Tuesday but Republicans on Judiciary and in leadership contend that it is just the tip of the iceberg.

"I think the key is just to finish the job," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News Sunday. "For example, just a day or so ago, we discovered that there are 300 boxes of additional material that has just been discovered from her time working with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense [and Education] Fund ... The committee needs to have access to that material and time to work through it so we don't -- so we know all the facts before we vote on a person who's up for a lifetime job."

On Thursday, the White House hit back, with the president's chief counsel, Greg Craig, telling the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., that the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund records had no relevance to Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination.

"Perhaps there is confusion about Judge Sotomayor's role with PRLDEF, and that confusion may account for your unusual interest," Craig wrote in a letter to Sessions. "Let me be clear: On Judge Sotomayor's behalf, we submitted all documents the committee requested of her, and we did so in record time."

The Obama White House and Democratic Party are making a major new push to rally support for a health care overhaul, going up on air with a television advertisement declaring that "It's Time" for reform.

The spot builds off of the growing effort by the administration to frame the health care debate with personal stories of struggle. In the ad, a woman describes the medical challenges faced by her four-year-old son. A man says he was losing his health insurance along with his job, and another man reveals that his "father-in-law walks with a limp because he didn't have health care."

The Democratic National Committee is officially putting out the ad, but the coordination with the White House is obvious. The administration and its campaign arm -- Organizing for America -- have made a major push in recent weeks to shift the focus of the debate over health care onto the people who personify the need for reform. This included launching a site, "Health Care Stories for America," a site that allows people to look up individual stories of suffering from within their community. The soon-to-be-released ad, obtained by the Huffington Post, directs viewers to Organizing for America's main health care website.

Officials with the DNC say the spot will go up on air on Tuesday. They would not disclose how widely it will air, including how much money was behind the campaign and what markets would be targeted. The ad will be distributed via email to Organizing for America's 13 million members.

That email, signed by Barack Obama's former Campaign Manager David Plouffe, asks viewers to make $25 contributions to help buy air time.

"I want you to be the first to see this powerful ad. It features real people telling their true stories of lost coverage, watching loved ones go without care, and making the case for why we need reform," reads the email. "Once you watch this, you'll see what we mean about how powerful these personal stories can be -- and why we need to get them on the air right away."

The loss of 467,000 jobs in June, driving the national unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, is unwelcome news for the Obama administration, which has spent half a year trying to turn the tide of the economic downfall. Already the president has conceded that 10 percent unemployment is likely in America's future. But the job front remains a particular vulnerability for this White House -- the one major chink in the Obama armor, far more politically delicate than the president's handling of foreign affairs or health care.

And so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that within minutes of their release, Obama's political opponents turned the porous June job numbers against him. Obviously anticipating the bad news, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) released a web video featuring a job-sniffing bloodhound named Ellie Mae asking: "Where are the jobs."

The clip, a Boehner aide says, is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Narrated by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga), it is based off a 1984 TV commercial by the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

"This is a light-hearted web video, but the underlying point is no laughing matter," Boehner said in a statement. "At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' isn't working. Americans were promised the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate from going above 8 percent. It's now skyrocketing above 9 percent. Where are the jobs?"

WATCH:

Obama's allies will point out that the foundation of this current wave of job loss is rooted in the policies of the Bush administration. Economic models hold that the stimulus spending by the administration won't take affect fully until months from now. But, six months into office, it is also a widely accepted that the White House now "owns" much of this economy. Even Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has insisted that the success of the administration's policies should be measured in the number of jobs created.

"A good starting point is looking at broad measures of economic performance, like jobs," Geithner said in a response to questions posed by Huffington Post readers.

The Treasury Secretary went on to note that "job losses in the month of May were at their lowest level since September 2008." That talking point, however, now seems inoperative as pace of job losses in June was nearly 50 percent greater than the month before.

With reporting by Laura Dean

Sen. Joseph Lieberman affirmed on Tuesday what progressive health care reform advocates have long feared: At this juncture, he is likely to oppose a public option for health insurance coverage.

The Connecticut independent made his latest criticisms of a public option in an interview with the New Haven Independent. Weeks earlier, he told Bloomberg News that he didn't favor such an approach that might level the insurance industry market.

For Democrats, it was a shot to the gut -- the latest so-called centrist lawmaker from within their own party ranks speaking out against one of their most cherished aspects of health care reform. For all the angst Lieberman has caused within Democratic circles the past few years, he was supposed to be an ally on domestic issues.

But was it all that unexpected? Those close to the senator argue that he has always been skeptical of large government involvement in the health care industry and that he has always advocated for a more incremental approach to health care reform.

"He has been very consistent in trying to seek innovative approaches to try and get to universal health care coverage," said Dan Gerstein, a former aide. "When he was part of the '00 ticket, he supported Al Gore's step-by-step approach to getting health care reform, which at the time many progressives were very supportive of. This is not a debate about goals for him. This is a debate about means, both in terms of what makes sense on a policy basis and what is obtainable."

This certainly was the role Lieberman played during the last major reform effort. During the heart of the Clinton-era debate over the how to restructure the health care system, the then-Democrat was a constant thorn in the administration's side. As early as December 1993, he was calling the Clinton plan "too governmental, too regulatory and too costly." A supporter of a moderate bill championed by then Sen. John Breaux, Lieberman would add the descriptions "too big" and "too bureaucratic" to Clinton's approach several months later.

By the summer of 2004, Lieberman was attacking the notion that employers should be required to provide health care for their workers, arguing that there was "a universal consensus" against the idea. He pledged to try and strip the provision from Majority Leader George Mitchell's health care proposal. He also said he was willing to take a look at the plan put forth by the then Minority Leader, Sen. Bob Dole, which was structured largely after the approach then-candidate George H.W. Bush had promoted during the '92 campaign.

A month later, Lieberman stepped up his push for Breaux's proposal, which called for providing subsidies to lower-income families, demanded that insurance companies cover preexisting conditions and limited the tax benefits employers enjoyed for covering their workers (components that defined John McCain's 2008 approach).

"If this doesn't break the logjam," Lieberman said at the time, "nothing will."

Later that summer, the senator joined the moderate push to make sharp cuts in the prescription drug benefit included in the Clinton and Mitchell plans. In its place, Lieberman promoted means-testing -- a measure to determine which individuals could qualify for those benefits -- and setting a cap on spending for long-term care.

A critic of that idea, John Rother, the chief lobbyist for the American Association of Retired Persons, derided Lieberman for putting the possibility of achieving health care reform "in jeopardy" in 1994.

"This is more of a Band-Aid approach than real health reform," Rother said at the time.

Asked to assess Sen. Lieberman's approach to health care 15 years later, Rother said that not much had changed. "Based on his record, this is no surprise," he told the Huffinton Post. "His views haven't really changed that much... I think anyone who followed his career sees he is an Independent in many ways. I don't think you could assume support just because he is aligned with the Democratic caucus."

Nevertheless, there was an element of the Democratic party that did hope that time and circumstance might have tempered Lieberman's position on the issue. Certainly, when Democrats accepted the senator back into their ranks after he campaigned publicly against President Barack Obama, the condition seemed to be that he would support Obama on key legislative issues.

Lieberman's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lieberman, who over the course of his career has taken more than $1 million from health professionals and insurance companies, as well as more than $600,000 from pharmaceutical and health product companies and $250,000 from health services and HMOs, could still come on board. He started off his interview with the New Haven Independent by saying he was "skeptical" of the public option -- not fully opposed -- because he feared "the public is going to end up paying for it."

The progressive community is doing what it can to change his mind.

"We expect Sen. Lieberman to support President Obama's health care plan, including offering the choice of a new public health insurance option to lower costs and keep the insurance companies honest," Jacki Schechner, National Communications Director for Health Care for America Now. "As for Sen. Lieberman's concerns, the president just explained in today's Town Hall that his plans for reform will be deficit neutral, and we'll pay for reform by reallocating wasted money already in the system and by cutting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2 percent."

UPDATE: Lieberman spokesman Marshall Wittmann writes on with the following comment, early Thursday morning.

Contrary to the suggestion that Senator Lieberman is a "health care spoiler," the opposite is true because Senator Lieberman is working hard to build a coalition to pass a health care reform bill. Although he does not support a public option that would be cost prohibitive and would make it very unlikely to pass a bill, he strongly supports health care reform that expands access, lowers costs and increases quality of care.

In bankruptcy hearings that went late into the night on Tuesday and resumed again on Wednesday, executives from General Motors laid out the pricey process through which the company will be restructured.

Company officials testified that it would cost approximately $1.25 billion to wind down the old GM, which is being retired in hopes of building a leaner, more modern company. Then an infusion of an additional $30 billion would be required to jump start the new GM. Any deviation from the plan, such as a refusal on behalf of the bankruptcy judge to allow the company to sell off assets, could result in liquidation.

The numbers and testimony provided remarkable window into how the company, once considered the pride of the U.S. economy, has collapsed. They also were a reminder that, as GM goes through a massive process of consolidation and rebirth, it is the taxpayer who will be footing the bill. Already the U.S. government has given the car company more than $19 billion for restructuring. The final tab will surpass $50 billion.

With lofty sums like these being granted for an expedited bankruptcy process, there is a heightened demand to know just where the money is going. But tracking the checks the government is writing is a difficult process. Even seasoned automotive industry and financial reporters say they're not entirely sure where to look.

"If you figure it out, I'd like to know myself," said Bill Visnic, a veteran automotive journalist. "When you give a company money there starts to be certain questions asked about how it is going to be used and what is it going to pay for. And it gets pretty murky when you start looking at how a company spends money on its operations. For me, I guess, I think it would be nice to know broadly: Are you spending the money to pay for improvements on your fixed assets, which are always an ongoing investment? Or is it going to go to a softer side of the business -- the advertising and the marketing? I would guess that if you start to touch those buttons too hard with the general public that is the stuff that would raise some scrutiny."

At this point it is nearly impossible to see detailed breakdowns of how GM is spending taxpayer money. The bankruptcy process will determine what portion of debts are repaid and assets sold. But the government is also paying to keep the company operational during these proceedings. Details regarding these expenditures are, as GM itself acknowledges, largely nonexistent.

"The easiest way to describe this is that the bridge loans were intended for general U.S. operating and restructuring expenses while GM and the [Treasury Department] worked on a long-term restructuring plan," said Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman for the company. "You can't say that Treasury loans went to X, while revenue from ongoing operations went to Y. The goal from day one was to stabilize and rapidly restructure GM so that it could return to health and start paying back the taxpayers. And so far, we are making good progress on that path."

Would more transparency and a different funding structure necessarily be a good thing? Wilkinson noted that if the GM bailout was funded by earmarks, the process of restructuring the company would "slow down... and cost more money in the end." Meanwhile, as Visnic and others note, opening up GM's books could be a double-edged sword, presenting problems both politically and economically.

Taxpayers, the argument goes, should be told exactly where their money is going. But as GM attempts a complicated and massive restructuring, disclosing proprietary business information, such as how much money the company is investing in a particular type of battery technology, could put it at a competitive disadvantage.

In addition, while the U.S. government will become the majority shareholder of the restructured company, with 60 percent of the stock, the administration is acutely sensitive to charges that it is meddling in private industry.

"The people managing these companies are so afraid of being called socialist that they can't do anything at all. But then it ends up that they are acting like bad capitalists," said Susan Helper a professor of economics at Case Western Reserve University and an expert on the automotive industry.

"I agree that we want to avoid micro-managing," Helper added. "On the other hand I also feel that we should use our investments to promote our interests and that the taxpayer has a slightly different interest than other investors. We should be spending money to keep people employed and building green cars. At the very least, the government should be considering a long-time horizon growth -- a patient-capital-type private investor. More controversial would be if the money was being spent on externalities... Are they spending it on retooling a plant in China, or revamping an office?

"I think the view that the administration's take is that these are managers and they know how to spend the bailout money," Helper concluded. "It is crazy because here are these managers who are so bad at managing that they are calling on the government for support. But somehow it is our role as taxpayers to only hand them the money and then hands off from there."

There are some ways to chart some of the money going to GM, but observers and watchdogs say that the data is hard to access and vague. For example, the president's Automotive Industry Financing Program is part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and so, amidst the detailed transaction reports listed on the Treasury Department's website, one can get a general sense of how much capital has been transferred to the company. But the explanations of what that money has purchased is not clear. On April 22, 2009, General Motors Corporation was granted $2 billion from Treasury for the purposes of "Debt Obligation" On June 3, the $30 billion payment was made, again for "Debt Obligation."

As part of the latter transaction, the U.S. government will receive roughly $8.8 billion in debt and preferred stock in the new GM. The company, in turn, will establish an independent trust, valued at $9 billion in funds and preferred stock, to provide health care benefits to retirees and TO continue to honor consumer warranties. The company has set aside a pool of funds ($361 million) to provide a backstop for payments on warranties for cars sold during the bankruptcy transition.

In addition, the Treasury Department has made many documents public related to General Motor's pledges and plans to streamline its operations. This includes a 264-page credit agreement between the company and the U.S. Treasury dated from April and a 117-page restructuring plan that GM presented to Treasury in February. Both of these files provide a detailed framework for where taxpayer money is going and for what purposes. In terms of tracking individual expenditures, however, those details are lacking.

Finally, the president has assigned an independent team of economists, energy experts and business managers, to oversee the restructuring of General Motors. And as a Treasury official noted, because "all the money that has been committed to GM comes out of TARP funding" the company is now "subject to all of the same corporate governance and compensation guidelines as any TARP recipient."

But, in the end, a large portion of the plan for rebuilding the company is being conducted away from the public's view. It may be, as Wilkinson notes, part of the normal bankruptcy process. "All loans and the [debtor-in-possession] financing are for use in general operating and restructuring activities here in the U.S.," he said. "That's as precise as this gets." And it could simply be because the U.S. government, as the Treasury official argued, "isn't interested in managing the day to day operations of any TARP recipients."

"As the majority shareholder on behalf of taxpayers," the official added, "the U.S. government will be involved in discussions in the same way a private investor would be."

But with taxpayers in uncharted waters in terms of the size of the monetary investment in a private company, some observers feel more transparency (regardless of the administrative costs associated with it) are deserved.

"This is an important public policy decision with unprecedented money involved," said Douglas Elliott, a fellow at the Brookings Institute who has followed the automotive bailout. "And it would be nice if it were clear how much money were used and for exactly what."

A highly personalized push for health care reform is being launched in several key states, with breast cancer survivors urging reluctant Democrats to support a public option for health insurance coverage.

On Wednesday, a coalition of progressive groups, including Democracy for America, MoveOn, and Change Congress, released a 60-second television ad in Louisiana ramping up the pressure on Sen. Mary Landrieu to support a government vehicle for insurance. In addition to shining a spotlight on the $1.6 million Landrieu has received from health and insurance companies in the form of campaign contributions, the spot also elevates the story of Karen Gadbois, a breast cancer survivor who had won the title of 2008 New Orleanian of the Year by exposing corruption after Hurricane Katrina.

"I'm a breast cancer survivor, so I know how important affordable health care is," says Gadbois. "But right now I'm uninsured, even though I work full-time, because the cost is just so high. It would literally take away half my salary."

The Landrieu ad, which will run in New Orleans and Baton Rouge for a week, is not an isolated incident of progressives using stories of medical suffering to push for more comprehensive health care reform. In a highly personalized essay on her site, FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher wrote about her own experiences with breast cancer and how it has affected the way she approaches the health care debate. In addition to calling out those female senators who currently sit on the fence when it comes to a public option, Hamsher adds that -- in coordination with the progressive group BlueNC and fellow blog, Pam's House Blend -- she will be reaching out to "my fellow breast cancer survivors in North Carolina," to put the pressure on Sen. Kay Hagan.

"Kay Hagan has been the sole obstacle keeping a public plan from coming out of the Senate HELP Committee," Hamsher writes. "On Friday, Pam Spaulding and breast cancer survivors of North Carolina will go to Kay Hagan's office carrying their signatures and those of the people who stand with them, asking Hagan to stand with us, too."

Finally, the White House itself seems to be increasingly willing to use health care horror stories as a launching pad to build momentum for reform. The president's campaign arm, Organizing for America, is raising funds for a nationwide ad campaign featuring, "real people, looking us in the eye, telling their actual story, and asking for our help to fix this broken system."

The targets, in all likelihood, won't be specific Democratic senators but rather a national audience. The goal, however, will be the same as the MoveOn ad and Hamsher's post: crystallizing public pressure for Congress to act and act in a way that reflects the president's agenda.

One of the Senate's most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation's health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.

"I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents," Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn't take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, 'I'm not gonna vote for this bill, it's too radical, blah, blah, blah, that's fine.'"

"I think the idea of going to conservative Republicans, who are essentially representing the insurance companies and the drug companies, and watering down this bill substantially, rather than demanding we get 60 votes to stop the filibuster, I think that is a very wrong political strategy," Sanders added.

Coming hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Franken the winner in a nearly eight-month recount process, Sanders' remarks reflect what will likely be a more aggressive political ethos from within the Democratic Party. Having a sixtieth caucusing member in the Senate gives the party the margin it needs to stave off a Republican filibuster, which seems all but certain should health care reform include a public option for insurance coverage. But the reality remains that the Democratic caucus is far from united. Corralling all of its members behind one piece of health care legislation -- especially the public option -- remains elusive.

Sanders' advice, which he hinted at in a separate interview with the Washington Post's Ezra Klein, is to simply take the parliamentary hurdles out of the process. The Party wouldn't have to worry about whip counts and could, in the end, get a more favorable final product, he believes.

"I think that politically that is something everybody can handle. You say, 'Look, I think there should be a vote. I'm gonna vote against it for A, B and C reasons. But I think the process has to move forward and it's unacceptable that Republicans keep trying to stop everything," said the Vermont Independent, who added that "The White House could play a very important part in this process"

"I think it would be great if we could have 100 senators voting for this, but what is important is the product that you get, not bipartisanship," Sanders went on. "So we should ask Republicans to support it. If they choose not to they do so at their own political risk. The focus should be on a strong bill trying to get Republican support rather than a weak bipartisan bill."

To this point, Senator Ben Nelson has hinted that he may oppose a public option for insurance coverage but has told constituents in Nebraska that he could very well support cloture despite opposing the bill itself. Other Democrats on the fence include Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Kay Hagan, of North Carolina, and Diane Feinstein of California.

As for the actual legislation itself, Sanders said he expected a strong public option to come out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions final product, But he worried that it would be "watered down" in order to bring Republican lawmakers on board. The concern, as Sanders expressed it, was that key Democrats in the process -- namely Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. -- were structuring their efforts to recruit Republican support rather than the best policy. He ridiculed the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," a group of four Republicans and three Democrats, organized by Baucus to help craft his reform proposal.

"The people who are sitting around who may determine health reform in the Senate are a majority of Republicans," Sanders said, incredulously.

In its place, Sanders proposed a Coalition of Unwilling -- as in a group of lawmakers unwilling to sacrifice a progressive bill for the sake of bipartisanship.

"Something is very wrong," he said. "What Sen. Baucus said is that the strategy should be to reach out to Republicans. All of them, without exception oppose a public plan. So what you'll end up having is a very weak piece of legislation probably regressively funded. My strategy is different."

Moments after former Sen. Norm Coleman conceded the drawn-out Minnesota Senate election to Al Franken, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that that he would sign the election certificate. In a matter of minutes, the eight-month-long recount process had come to a close.

All was well within the Democratic Party, which had finally received that elusive 60th caucus member. The Republican filibuster would be no longer be a threat.

Or maybe not.

Franken is expected to come to Washington after the July 4th recess. But not everyone is convinced that his presence will make a huge political difference. The reality, which few in the Democratic Party are willing to talk about openly, is that there are really only 58 caucusing members. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, has been out for nearly all of the current Congress on medical leave. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, while released from the hospital on Tuesday morning, continues to face health issues of his own. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, D-La, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., have made it almost a point of pride in not allowing their votes to be taken for granted. And on specific issues, the party has proven strikingly allergic to philosophical unison.

"It is good news for the Democrats and it is bad news for the Republicans. That is a simple fact," said Mo Elleithee, a Democratic strategist who has worked on Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe's campaigns. "Having said that, you don't want to get too far ahead of yourself here. It is not like the caucus is unanimous on every issue."

Talking on condition of anonymity, some Democratic strategists were even blunter. "Sixty is an imaginary number," said one operative. "You are always going to lose the Ben Nelsons and all the centrists. This is why 2010 proves to be so important because it can set a buffer for that 60 threshold."

"This is a story Jim Manley [Majority Leader Harry Reid's press secretary] will love, but it has the virtue of being true," the operative added.

"It's true," said Manley when reached by phone. "It is obviously sometimes difficult to say this to your audience [Huffington Post readers]. While this is, of course, good news to the people of Minnesota, President Obama, and the Senate Democratic, Franken's mere presence alone will not mean that the Democrats will be able to jam through our agenda, or make it any less critical for Democrats and Republicans to work together. We have a diverse caucus who represent diverse constituencies. No one's vote is ever automatic. Also... we have two senators that currently aren't voting right now. But then I would go back and say that up until now we have gotten very little to no help from Republicans who say no against everything and are prepared to bet on this president to fail."

Discussing the new congressional landscape, officials in the White House and on the Hill wavered between relief and delight. As one administration official put it, "counting votes is a nice problem to have," as opposed to corralling them. Over in Congress, meanwhile, the prevailing wisdom held that leadership's job just got a bit lighter.

"Franken doesn't solve all of our problems," said long-time strategist Paul Begala, who regularly talks to all ranks of the Democratic establishment. "But first, as a friend and supporter of Al's, this is delayed justice but not denied. Second, this is a good day for Harry Reid. He has the hardest job in Washington except for the president. I'm not sure how he has any hairs left on his head. This won't solve all problems but it will make it much easier."

As Begala argued, it is easier to convince a senator on the fence to come into the party fold when he or she has the chance to the deal-breaking vote. The incentives, simply put, are more alluring and the White House might not need to make major concessions in order to get its priorities past.

"No one in that crowd in the middle wants to be the big leap to be the 57th," Begala said. "But if you are going to be 60th, or in the group that gets to 60, it becomes easier to leap across that gap."

Franken is likely to be sworn in next Tuesday and, according to Manely, he is poised to serve on the Judiciary and Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committees, among others. In discussion with Democrats inside and out of office the issue they expect the newly elected Senator to have the greatest impact on is health care. On topics like the soon to be considered cap-and-trade bill and the Employee Free Choice Act, strategists say, the party might face deficits bigger than one additional vote.

Whip counts and legislation aside, the party is clearly embracing Wednesday's news. In addition to helping the Democratic Party face critical upcoming votes in the Senate, the seating of Franken is, at its most primal level, another shot to the gut for the reeling GOP.

"I'd rather be us than them," said Elleithee.

The White House declined to say on Tuesday whether it would support the use of a parliamentary maneuver to pass a health care in the Senate on a 50, as opposed to 60-vote margin. If anything, spokesman Robert Gibbs stressed, it was "always" the president's preference to get legislation passed by regular order.

Gibb's remarks followed earlier comments by two major White House allies -- former Majority Leader Tom Daschle and John Podesta, the head of the presidential transition -- who both insisted that the use of reconciliation to pass health care should be on the table.

"I would not hesitate to use it," Daschle said on Monday.

"There is a point at which you have to move on," said Podesta. And at that point, he said, reconciliation, which eliminates the use of the filibuster by Republicans, should come into play.

Asked on Tuesday if he agreed with Daschle and Podesta, Gibbs refused to talk legislative strategy. "Again, I think that gets a great deal ahead of where we are in the process," he replied. "I think the president has confidence in the system working, in ... the steps many committees are taking to work amongst themselves to find a legislative solution. Obviously I think having the ability, having lots of different avenues to take, gives Congress an understanding of how serious the problem is."

Pressed on whether he thought, as Podesta implied, that Republicans in the Senate were asking too much from the White House in a health care compromise, Gibbs again declined to draw "bright lines."

"The process continues," he said. "The president and the administration feel good about the progress ... and will continue to work in that system to find a solution to that problem." The president always prefers passing legislation via regular order as opposed to reconciliation, Gibbs said.

The White House hailed on Tuesday the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops out of Iraq's cities but declined to qualify the benchmark as a victory, or even a success, in the six-year-long war.

"I will keep the banner printers from doing anything crazy," said spokesman Robert Gibbs, in reference to the infamous "Mission Accomplished" sign that adorned the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during George W. Bush's 2003 combat flight stunt. "The way we look at this is, there is progress that is being made. Obviously the security situation has improved. I think President Obama talked about that throughout last year. And again, I think we are taking important steps on two fronts: our ability to get our own combat troops home, but also our ability to give the sovereign nation of Iraq more control and responsibility."

Gibbs hinted that a spike in violence could very well accompany the withdrawal of U.S. forces. "Despite whatever happens today," he said, "this situation bears constant monitoring. Because there may be rough patches ahead. We understand that. There are important elections that will happen over the course of this year and important steps that have to be taken on the path of reconciliation."

On Tuesday, United States forces pulled out the remaining combat troops from Iraq's cities, marking an important benchmark in a withdrawal strategy that had been negotiated between the two countries. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops will remain. But commanders on the ground say that the pieces have been put in place to continue the drawdown through the course of the next year. All combat troops are due out by August 31, 2010, and the Status of Forces Agreement aims for a final withdrawal by December 2011.

Asked if President Bush's surge policy was to credit for facilitating Tuesday's accomplishment, Gibbs drew a distinction between security improvements on the ground and political progress among Iraq's governing factions.

"The president would say, obviously increasing the number of troops in that country improved the security situation," he said. "But the surge was to improve the security situation so that the political reconciliation could take place. So while the security situation has improved, we still have a lot of work to do on the political side of this equation."

The passage of historic climate change legislation by the House of Representatives last Friday has thrust to the forefront a sharp debate within the Republican Party over how much ideological and political orthodoxy should be demanded of its members.

In the immediate aftermath of the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, otherwise known as Waxman-Markey, attention within conservative circles turned to the eight Republican lawmakers who supported the measure. The bill had passed by a margin of 219 to 212. Even the most mathematically challenged would understood that had four of those Republicans switched their votes, the legislation might have died on the House floor.

And so the GOP began the process of, what one Democratic strategist called, "eating its own." A classic western "Wanted" posted was sent around the web accusing the eight Republicans -- Reps. Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Mike Castle (Del.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John McHugh (N.Y.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Dave Reichert (Wash.), and Chris Smith (N.J.) -- of "selling out taxpayers." Rush Limbaugh, in the process of ridiculing the bill's sponsor, Rep. Henry Waxman, damned the Republican Party for facilitating the legislation's passage.

Michelle Malkin, the prominent conservative commentator and writer, mocked the those Republicans who "helped the Democrats pass a junk science-based, massive national energy tax." Another conservative blogger, Stacy McCain, demanded that the movement cut off donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee in retaliation for the betrayal.

"What's the point of giving money to the national party if, on key votes, Republican members of the House are indistinguishable from Nancy Pelosi?" she asked. McCain went on to suggest that John Sullivan, a GOP lawmaker from Oklahoma should have left rehab for alcohol treatment in order to cast a vote, much like Rep. Patrick Kennedy did for the Democrats.

The visceral reaction seems drawn not just from philosophical objections to the bill, which would institute a cap-and-trade system to reset drastically the way the government regulates pollution, but also from the political implications that stem from having Republicans support a largely Democratic measure. To the extent that Democrats can now point to those eight GOP lawmakers and claim bi-partisanship, they will. More importantly, the defections weaken the attacks that GOP leadership was gearing to launch in the wake of Waxman-Markey's passage. When House Minority Whip Eric Cantor declared on Monday that there is "no question that there are going to be very dire consequences for those who voted for this bill," was he including members of his own party?

"Any ads that come from the Republican Party of No on the energy bill against Dems can very easily be used against the eight Republicans who were the deciding votes for the energy bill," emailed one Democratic operative. "It's not that hard to hit the forward button.

In the end, not everyone was terribly surprised by the defection of the eight Republicans. Democrats on the Hill say that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had the votes to pass the measure regardless of how many Republicans came on board. Forty-four Democrats ended up opposing the bill, but largely because they were granted license to cast those votes (hoping to appeased more conservative constituencies). Those eight Republicans found themselves pulled in a diametrically opposite direction.

"I think each had different reasons for voting for the bill, mostly electoral self-preservation," said Steve Hayward, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in an e-mail. "Reichert, in suburban Seattle, had a major TV ad campaign from the greens urging him to vote for the bill... I suspect he feared he might lose the next election if he opposed it. Mary Bono Mack, who has a huge windfarm in her district, actually seems to believe in the bill; her late husband Sonny never would have gone for it... I do think it is a mistake to suggest, though, that had these eight Republicans opposed the bill it would have lost. I am sure Pelosi had eight more votes if she needed them among Democrats who are worried about re-election."

Also, it should be noted that some of the more moderate voices in the conservative movement have begrudgingly excused the lawmakers for the heterodoxy. The real test of ideological purity, they argue, will come when Congress takes up health care.

"Each of the eight had a record that made their vote unsurprising. They had green records with endorsements from groups like sierra and others," said Soren Dayton, a GOP strategist who wrote about the topic on the site, TheNextRight. "I think that health care is a different issue. I don't think that those eight are vulnerable in the same way."

RNC Chairman Michael Steele lashed out at embattled Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday, saying the South Carolina Republican had thrown the voters' trust back in their faces. Sounding like an angry parent, he scolded the governor, saying that he should have "known better."

But Steele didn't call on Sanford to step down from the governor's chair, saying such a decision would be left to the people of South Carolina. But in his second public comment on Sanford's admission to an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina, he was hardly forgiving.

"It is a problem of leadership," said Steele in an interview on Fox News. "It is a failure of individuals to understand and appreciate why they were elected.... And when you throw that back in the voter's face this is the price you pay. So my heart goes out to Mrs. Sanford and the boys, but the governor should know better. That is not what leadership is about. It is not your personal agenda. It is about the service you bring to the community. That is what people expect. There is a higher standard for guys and gals who assume that mantle of public leadership. And we have got to live up to it. No doubt about it, Democrats and Republicans."

Added to those of Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Steele's comments are the harshest rebukes to come from within the Republican Party. Other figures, notably Sen. Lindsey Graham (the godfather of Sanford's children) have expressed personal disappointment with the news but argued that this is largely a private matter. In the end, there seems to be little benefit for the GOP to rally behind Sanford's cause. The party is already reeling from a host of ethics gaffes and political embarrassments. And now strategists are beginning to wonder whether officials should step back a bit from their family values platform. If Sanford survives, in short, it won't be because figures like Steele make moves to ensure he stays in office.

The legacy of George W. Bush has weighed heavily on the Republican Party, casting a large shadow over GOP candidates in the past two national elections.

But is that toxicity beginning to wane? For the first time in recent memory, a Republican candidate is actively embracing the tenure of George W. Bush, citing the economic growth up through 2006 as a template of governance he'd like to pursue.

On Saturday, former Virginia Attorney General and current gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell delivered the following remarks at the Boys State Convention in Lynchburg, Virginia.

"President Bush put in a ten-year tax-cut on everything from the death tax to capital gains tax and it was followed by an unprecedented period of economic recovery and economic growth," he said. "In fact, it almost overheated the economy through about 2006. So, I think that's the way you stimulate business. And that's the kind of governor that I'm going to be to reduce those impediments to entrepreneurship, to let small businesses grow and thrive and create some opportunity."

To be fair, it is hard to draw a larger trend from one snippet of one speech of one candidate for what is still considered a Republican state (though increasingly a political toss-up). Additionally, McDonnell has praised Bush in the past. But as the economic environment becomes increasingly owned by the Obama administration it will be curious to see not just how frequently Republicans whack the president on this front, but how willing they are to tie themselves to the early Bush years. Will McDonnell be the exception or the norm?