http://www.politico.com/huddle/1209/huddle440.html
By: MARTIN KADY II
Now that the selling begins.
Democrats have a huge job PR job ahead of them in the coming year as they seek to dig out of the massive polling deficit they have with the American people after a brutal autumn of health care debate.
The first thing they have to do is get people to understand what’s actually in the bill once it passes early next year, then try to convince voters why Democrats shouldn’t be punished at the polls next November for passing this behemoth.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
At 7 a.m., the Senate opened its session for the day and was on track to pass another procedural motion, setting the final countdown to passage of the health care bill by Christmas Eve.
ABORTION STILL LOOMS: The abortion language in the Senate bill isn’t a slam dunk in the House quite yet, as NYT’s David Herszenhorn and Robert Pear report: “Even as the Senate took a significant step toward passing its version of a sweeping overhaul of the health insurance system before Christmas, Democrats were grappling Monday with deep internal divisions over abortion, the issue that most complicates their drive to merge the Senate and House bills and send final legislation to President Obama. In the House, advocates and opponents of abortion rights and conservative Democrats have made clear that they object, for different reasons, to the Senate’s compromise language on abortion. Interest groups on both sides of the spectrum — Planned Parenthood on the abortion rights side, Catholic bishops for the anti-abortion rights camp — also oppose the abortion provision in the Senate bill, leaving Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a challenge in rounding up the votes she needs in the House.”
