**Polls
*NY Times/CBS: "President Obama is confronting declining support for his handling of the war in Afghanistan and an electorate confused and anxious about a health care overhaul as he prepares for pivotal battles over both issues ... But Mr. Obama is going into the fall having retained considerable political strength. At 56 percent, his approval rating is down from earlier in the year but still reasonably strong at this point compared with recent presidents."

*Gallup: "Americans are more likely to say they would oppose (50%) rather than favor (41%) a possible decision by President Barack Obama to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan."

*National Journal Insiders Poll: 75% of Congressional Democrats says major health care reform legislation will be enacted this year, while Republicans say the most likely outcome is scaled back legislation is enacted at some point during this Congress. On Obama's handling of foreign policy, the average grade from Dems was a B+ and Republicans a D+.

**President Obama
*Hanging over the G-20 today: Iran's covert nuclear facility. The Times: "American officials said that they had been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project."

*Before he left the UN, Obama "won United Nations Security Council approval for a resolution that targets nations that attempt to use civilian nuclear technology for military purposes, part of his campaign to galvanize international support for nuclear disarmament," the Wall Street Journal reports.

*Washington Post: "With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule and left them struggling to win the cooperation of Congress. ... White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week."

*Joe Biden, speaking about the Recovery Act during a conference call with governors: "In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well." He also had this to say last night at a fundraiser for freshmen Reps. from Virginia: "Some of the guys ... I have campaigned for are turkeys"

*Supreme Court Watch: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg "was taken to Washington Hospital Center at 7:45 p.m. EDT Thursday and would remain there for the night as a precaution, a statement from the court said. Earlier in the day, Ginsburg had received an iron sucrose infusion to treat an iron deficiency anemia that had been discovered in July. About an hour later, she 'developed lightheadedness and fatigue.'"

**Health Care
*ABC's Jonathan Karl calls today "high noon" for the public option. "Senators Chuck Schumer and Jay Rockefeller will force a roll-call vote ... in the Senate Finance Committee on two amendments that would create a government-run insurance program. ... If the amendments fail, it would appear the public option is all but dead in the Senate (although liberals will try to resurrect it when the full Senate takes up the bill)."

*"Democrats will step up their challenge to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's health-care-overhaul plan today, the opening salvo in a larger fight over the shape and scope of final legislation. Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia will push for a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers," Bloomberg reports.

*"President Obama scored a big victory on Thursday as the Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposal to require pharmaceutical companies to give bigger discounts to Medicare on drugs dispensed to older Americans with low incomes," NY Times reports.

**Campaign Stuff
*Fundraising Down for Dems: "Democratic political committees have seen a decline in their fundraising fortunes this year, a result of complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party's harsh rhetoric about big business. The trend is a marked reversal from recent history, in which Democrats have erased the GOP's long-standing fundraising advantage," Washington Post reports.

*The NRCC is using Rep. Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) name in a fundraising e-mail on health care. "If we can raise more money than the Democrats, we'll send a message to Pelosi, Obama, and their friends that the American people are firmly behind the Republicans in opposition to government-run healthcare," Wilson writes in an e-mail this morning.

*An RNC e-mail tries to raise money off the YouTube video of students singing about Obama. "Friend, this is the type of propaganda you would see in Stalin's Russia or Kim Jong Il's North Korea. I never thought the day would come when I'd see it here in America. This is the type of fanaticism Republicans are up against as we fight to stop the Obama Democrats' radical leftist transformation of America."

*Cillizza reports that Sen. John McCain will raise money for Mitt Romney next Wednesday in Phoenix. "McCain's willingness to sign on for a fundraiser to collect cash for Romney's leadership PAC suggests the rivalry of 2008 is gone if not totally forgotten."

*Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge endorsed Tom Corbett (R) for governor in 2010 over Rep. Jim Gerlach (R).

*Washington Post reports about Democrats' fundraising concerns. The downturn is attributed to "a complacency among their rank-and-file donors and a de facto boycott by many of their wealthiest givers, who have been put off by the party's harsh rhetoric about big business."

*The Massachusetts GOP is going to court to try and block Kirk's appointment to the Senate, AP reports.

**Holidays: Tomorrow is National Hunting and Fishing Day, President Obama proclaimed earlier this week. Celebrate in style.

--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli