All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Before President Barack Obama addresses the nation Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on his decision regarding the Afghanistan war, he will have to face a possibly tougher audience.

Top congressional leaders, Chairmen and ranking members of the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Appropriations committees have been invited to the White House late Tuesday afternoon to meet with the president for an advanced briefing on the new policy. And it could be tense.

It is expected that Mr. Obama will announce that he will deploy 30,000 to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. That's in addition to 68,000 U.S. troops already in that country, bringing the total number of soldiers to around 100,000. Both the White House Office of Management and Budget and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen have estimated that it would cost $1 billion for each thousand additional troops to pay for logistical support, salaries, equipment, transportation and additional training.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

That cost issue has become a real target for at least two Democrats invited to Tuesday's meeting. The first is the powerful Chairman of the House Appropriations committee, David Obey (D-WI). It's often said that the Appropriations Committees hold the purse strings in Congress. Any additional war spending would have to go through Chairman Obey, and he's threatening to tie those strings tight.

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Blue Dog Democrat Jim Matheson (D-Utah) told CBS News' John Dickerson that members of the moderate Democratic coalition are the "true Democrats because we wear that label even when it may actually effect us in a negative way in our elections," on "Washington Unplugged" Tuesday.

"At the end of the day if people want to question the Democratic credentials of the Blue Dogs," Matheson said, "I'll tell you what, by Blue Dogs running as Democrats we face a handicap in running in our districts. There are other people who by running as a Democrat they automatically win."

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House Democrats would like to pass a jobs bill by Dec. 18, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters today.

With unemployment rates surpassing 10 percent, Democrats say they are getting input from economists on the most effective ways to get more people back in the workforce, CBS News Capitol Hill Producer Jill Jackson reports.

Democrats are considering a range of ideas, Hoyer said, including providing aid to states, giving tax credits to employers as an incentive to hire more people and extending unemployment benefits or the federal subsidy of COBRA health insurance benefits.

Hoyer also said highway spending is on the table. The White House is not interested in signing the full extension of the federal highway spending program this year, which could create thousands of jobs but be very costly.

While he "would not characterize [the jobs bill] as a second stimulus," Hoyer said "we will not have the kind of recovery we want" as long as jobless rates remain so high, Jackson reports. Hoyer added that the bill will be very targeted, but he could not say how large the package will be.

With unemployment now above 10 percent, Senate Democrats are planning to craft a new jobs bill next year, according to a report in The Hill.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said at the Senate Democrats' weekly lunch Tuesday that he is now exploring a job-creation initiative, Sen. Ben Cardin told the newspaper. Cardin said "our caucus will take it up."

What will be in the bill – or when it might be introduced – is not yet known. Sen. Patty Murray , D-Wash., told the Hill that no final decision about legislation has yet been made.

Reid, whose approval rating at home stands at just 32 percent, is among the vulnerable Democrats going into the 2010 midterm election season. The weak economy is working against him, as is the fact that the president's party traditionally loses Congressional seats in midterms. In Nevada, the unemployment rate is 13.5 percent.

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A Gallup poll released today gives the Republicans a 48 percent to 44 percent edge over Democrats in a generic congressional ballot if the 2010 elections were held today. The Republicans have been inching closer to the lead after trailing the Democrats by six points in a similar poll conducted last July.

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Jane Hamsher, the founder of liberal blog FireDogLake.com, said in an interview Tuesday that the liberal base is "worried" about the Obama administration and may "stay home" in the 2010 midterm elections.

Hamsher compared the current situation to the 1994 elections, when, she said, the Democratic base (including union members) was demoralized and disengaged following the passage of The North American Free Trade Agreement. Republicans took control of both the House and Senate in that contest.

She argued that the Obama administration is paying little attention to its base even as the opposition gins up support among the Republican base with events like the Tea Party protests.

"If you're suppressing your base, and the other side is revving up theirs, and midterm elections are all about turning out the base, I sort of question what their strategy is here," she said.

Hamsher has signed on to a financial boycott of the Democratic National Committee, Organizing for America (the DNC-run operation to mobilize Obama supporters) and the Obama campaign. The boycott was organized by Americablog's John Aravosis and Joe Sudbay over what they see as President Obama and his party's failure to keep its commitments to the gay and lesbian community.

"LGBT Americans, our families, and our friends kept our promise at the ballot box, we now expect President Obama to keep his in the White House," they wrote. In addition to Hamsher, cosponsors include the liberal blog Daily Kos, writer and editor Dan Savage and radio host Michelangelo Signorile.

The boycott will be lifted, Aravosis and Sudbay write, when legislation is signed enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama pledged action on all these issues but has not pressed them since entering office.

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Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

** All eyes turn to the Senate's health care bill...

** The party tenets Democrats compromised to pass a bill...

** A closer look at those 40 renegade House members...

HEALTH CARE – THE NEXT STEP The House passed its version of health care reform late Saturday night and by early Sunday morning, there were major warning signs about the upcoming Senate battle, even after President Obama went to the Rose Garden to prod senators into moving forward.

"Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said [on CBS' 'Face the Nation'] the health care bill ... is 'dead on arrival to the Senate,'" writes CBS News' Michelle Levi. "Graham argued that the House bill was 'written for liberals, by liberals.'"

USA Today's John Fritze,"'If the public option plan is in there ... I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,' Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman— one of two independents Democrats are counting on — warned on Fox News Sunday. 'I believe the debt can break America.'"

Boston Globe's Sasha Issenberg details Lieberman's filibuster threat.

It's not just Lieberman and Senate Republicans that threaten to slow things down. As in the House, moderate Democrats have their own set of concerns as well.

"Even before Saturday’s House vote, senators had begun to question why Reid suddenly shifted course two weeks ago and threw his weight behind a public option plan, laying bare the deep divisions in his caucus between liberals and moderates," report Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown and Manu Raju.

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The two Democrats who won election Tuesday – Bill Owens, who won a much-discussed upstate New York race against conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman, and former California Gov. John Garamendi – were sworn in this week.

Owens' swearing-in took place today, while Garamendi's took place on Thursday, as the New York Times reports.

The addition of the two lawmakers comes as Democrats are poised to vote on health care reform legislation, and with some moderate Democrats vowing to vote against the legislation, Speaker Nancy Pelosi can use all the Democrats she can get.

House leaders have reportedly not yet secured the 218 votes they need to pass the bill, prompting a possible delay in the vote, which had been set for Saturday.

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President Obama's campaign manager played down Wednesday the significance of election results that saw Republicans steal two governorships from his party, and gave a glowing assessment of his boss's performance one year into the job.

"I think generally these elections tend to be overrated in terms of what they mean later," David Plouffe told "The Early Show" of the GOP victories in New Jersey and Virginia.

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Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step farther away from the Senate Democratic caucus this week, when he said he may support some Republican candidates in the 2010 elections and may not run as a Democrat when he is up for reelection in 2012.

"I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the election in 2010. I'm going to call them as I see them," Lieberman told ABC News.

"There's a hard core of partisan, passionate, hardcore Republicans," he said. "There's a hard core of partisan Democrats on the other side. And in between is the larger group, which is people who really want to see the right thing done, or want something good done for this country and them -- and that means, sometimes, the better choice is somebody who's not a Democrat."

As for whether he would run as a Democrat himself in 2012 , "That's an open question," Lieberman said.

Lieberman ran as an independent in the 2006 general election to hold onto his Connecticut Senate seat, after being knocked out of the Democratic primary by challenger Ned Lamont. He managed to hold onto his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee by agreeing to still caucus with the Democratic party.

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