It's hard to figure how many Republicans in the House and Senate the president will be able to reach tonight as he delivers the second address to Congress of his still young presidential term. Many, including the minority leaders of the House and Senate, are simply against a comprehensive health care reform bill -- with or without a public option.

"What I hope I won't hear tonight is that we have to do a massive, comprehensive bill or nothing," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking at a joint press conference this afternoon with House Minority Leader John Boehner. "That strikes us as not the way to move forward."

Boehner is hoping the president says he wants to start over on a reform bill, something few expect the president to say. The American people, Boehner said, simply "want the current system to work better; they don't want to replace it with a big, government-run plan."

Neither side of the aisle feels there's been much bipartisan cooperation on the issue of health care reform, though McConnell outlined certain fundamentals of reform Republicans would be open to working with Democrats on: strengthen the care and insurance people have, making insurance more accessible to the uninsured and lower costs for all. "Those are the kinds of principles around which we could rally, I think, a broad bipartisan agreement," McConnell said.

McConnell wants Congress to "skinny" the bill down and target issues such as "junk lawsuits" and insurance reform -- passing smaller, more focused bills.

"We're all interested in what he has to say," said Boehner. "But I hope he's been listening to the American people, because I think over the course of August they've made their voices loud and clear that they don't want this massive government takeover of our health care system. But it appears the president is going to double down tonight, and try to put lipstick on this pig and call it something else."