**Health Care
*"His health care vision and political clout on the line, President Barack Obama is using virtually every tool available in a publicity campaign to pressure Congress for swift legislative approval and to rally a public wary of the ongoing Washington tussle over his top domestic priority," AP reports.

*Time's Tumulty sat down with the President yesterday, and posted excerpts. A headline: "The truth is we've actually, I think, provided more guidance than has been advertised," Obama said.

*AP notes that despite Obama's salesmanship, much of the tough dealmaking is on the shoulders of Sens. Max Baucus and Harry Reid. Both conservative Democrats "are deep in multidimensional and simultaneous negotiations taking place among senators of both parties, countless coalitions, interest groups, their own constituents and the White House." Reid: "I have a responsibility to get a bill on the Senate floor that will get 60 votes. That's my number one responsibility and there are times when I have to set aside my personal preferences for the good of the Senate and, I think, the country."

*The Hill: "A House fight among Democrats on overhauling the nation's healthcare system has spread to the Senate, where centrists and liberals are clashing over the direction the legislation should take. Trouble is brewing now that a bipartisan group of senators -- led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) -- has signaled it will exclude a government-run insurance option from the committee's draft legislation that could be marked up next week."

*Gallup: "Forty-four percent of Americans believe a new healthcare reform law would improve medical care in the U.S., contrasted with 26% who say it would improve their personal medical care. Forty-seven percent of Americans believe reform will expand access to healthcare in the U.S., while 21% say it will expand their own access to healthcare."

**President Obama
*Gallup reports Obama's "job approval rating registering 56% for the seven-day period ending Sunday, down from 59% the previous week. This three percentage point drop is the largest week-to-week decline seen in Obama's job approval thus far in his presidency, and punctuates a gradual descent from his 66% rating in early May. The current week is starting off no better for Obama than the previous one. His job approval score in Gallup Poll Daily tracking, conducted July 25-27, is 54%; this is his lowest individual reading to date. Thirty-seven percent of Americans currently disapprove of the job he is doing and 9% have no opinion."

*A new NPR survey finds Obama's approval rating even lower -- at an eye-popping-ly low 53%. Obama now has just a 54.1% approval raring in the RCP Average.

*The Washington Post reports that this weekend, the Cabinet will hold a retreat at Blair House to look back at the first six months. "Two sources characterized the session as an attempt at 'bonding.' Another said the gathering, which a top aide said has been long-planned, would be modeled after similar corporate events designed to provide an assessment of how the administration is doing halfway through the year."

*New York Times reports, "The fate of one of the youngest detainees at the Guantánamo Bay prison is emerging as a major test of whether the courts or the president has the final authority over when prisoners there are released."

*Blurring the lines? Washington Post's Kurtz reports that the Huffington Post has hired David Axelrod's son. "The younger Axelrod started yesterday as editor of the Huffington Post's new local edition in Denver, the third of a dozen planned sites that have already launched in New York and Chicago and will next target Los Angeles. He applied for the job, was interviewed by Arianna Huffington along with other candidates, and was tapped after submitting a mockup of the Denver home page. The site goes live in September. "

**Ethics: "U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson's rundown Sacramento house, which became the scourge of the neighborhood and a sore point with an investor who thought he had bought it out of foreclosure, has drawn the interest of a House ethics panel," L.A. Times reports.

**Campaign Stuff
*A good big picture look from Politico: "Democrats giddy with possibilities only six months ago now confront a perilous 2010 landscape signaled by troublesome signs of President Barack Obama's political mortality, the plunging popularity of many governors and rising disquiet among many vulnerable House Democrats." It might be too soon to say "that the Democratic congressional majorities are in serious jeopardy. ... Yet the possibilities GOP officials now imagine are a dramatic shift from the bleak prospects that the 2010 midterm elections presented for the party at the beginning of the year."

*"After keeping silent for a month" on the stimulus decision by Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison "has opened up a vocal offensive on the issue, hammering Perry for refusing to accept $555 million in federal unemployment stimulus money. Perry is standing firmly behind his decision, saying taking the money would have subjected Texas employers to taxes long after the benefits expire," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

*Speaking of gubernatorial primaries, The Observer reports: "in his first scheduled bout of Capital-region shmoozing since an April appearance at the Democratic Rural Conference, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo spoke to about 50 party activists at the Desmond Hotel in Colonie. More significantly, as far as his audience was concerned, they spoke to him."

*Mark your calendars: Iowa's 2010 caucuses are moving to a weekend: January 23, 2010 at 1 p.m. It's an experiment of sorts, and perhaps could change the calendar for 2010.

*In attacking the Democratic health care plan in Washington, Tim Pawlenty took a shot at Mitt Romney's legacy in Massachusetts, CNN reports. The Minnesota gov said the Bay State plan "has succeeded in expanding the ranks of the insured but has raked up much higher than expected costs in the process and resulted in higher taxes and fees."

--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli