One month after the U.S. launched a great diplomatic experiment by talking directly with Iran, the pressure of the effort is opening up some stress fractures.

Some small fractures are showing up in the wall of solidarity the U.S. and its partners have tried to show in confronting Iran over its nuclear program — specifically over how long to give diplomacy a chance before turning to new economic sanctions.

But the more meaningful stress fractures are showing up within Iran itself. There, the unwillingness to follow through on a nuclear deal the country’s own negotiators worked out — or even to offer a straight explanation of why Iran isn’t following through — has laid bare serious fissures within the country’s ruling establishment.

If that continues to be the case, the U.S. and its partners will be heading in coming weeks toward a fundamental question: Are these splits within Iran more likely to be widened by the pressures generated through continued diplomacy, or by the pressures generated by tough new economic sanctions?

That’s the picture that emerges from conversations in recent days with both American and European officials familiar with the diplomatic engagement with Iran. None pretend to have perfect knowledge of what is happening within the Byzantine world of Iranian decision-making, which has been made all the more complicated by the divisions opened up amid protests over what is widely seen as a rigged presidential election there during the summer.

See the full column here.

But the final House vote count seems the only fixed item in online analysis of where things stand now. Many write about conservative Democrats sweating over whether the bill calls for too much government and too much money, but Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic argues pretty much the opposite. He thinks the bill would be better if it were actually bigger, and kicked in faster. “Ideological arguments about socialized medicine and government takeovers don’t have much appeal beyond the conservative base,” he argues. “The rest of the population just wants relief (from rising health care costs) and security (from medical or financial hardship). If reform accomplishes that, they will be happy, no matter how long or complex the actual bill was. But does Saturday’s vote make that more likely? In many crucial ways, yes.”

Still, he says, “the transformation would be slow. In order to keep the total federal outlays for coverage at around $1 trillion over 10 years, the House bill wouldn’t create the new insurance exchanges…or start offering subsidies for several years. While it would offer more financial assistance and stronger insurance protection than its Senate counterpart is likely to promise, it wouldn’t do as much to reduce the cost of medical care in the long run…To be clear, the House bill is a great start. It should just be faster, stronger, and–really–bigger.”

Time’s Jay Newton-Small, writing on the Swampland blog, gives an on-the-other-hand view. He wonders whether House leaders asked too much of their Democratic rank-and-file followers by demand ing a vote now: “After the August protests there had been much speculation that the House would wait for the Senate to act….So why push through a bill now, the week after twin gubernatorial losses in New Jersey and Virigina and a day after the country hit 10% unemployment? Most members said, the leadership felt the time for debate had come to an end — after all (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi had originally wanted to pass the bill before August recess but deferred in deference to anxious freshmen. They worried if the process wasn’t jump started, the Senate might falter and fail. But, having forced her vulnerables to take a hard vote on climate change, was it rash of Pelosi to rush a vote on health care — espeically if the Senate ends up not including a public plan in their bill (though as it stands right now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it will be in)? Many vulnerable Dems headed home this weekend feeling a bit battered and fearing what it means to go it alone, as Dems clearly are these days. ”

Debra J. Saunders of Townhall.com argues—perhaps a bit cynically—that Democrats have found a way to get young people to support a health overhaul. “The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee health care bill includes a provision that would allow parents to keep their children as dependents on their health care policies until age 26. Not to be outdone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last month that, as Congressional Quarterly reported, the House bill ‘will allow young people to stay on their parents’ policies until age 27.’ Do I hear age 28? Why not 30? As long as Washington is giving away private health care coverage, why not eliminate the age cap entirely?…Eureka. Pelosi has found the way to get young adults behind health care reform — have mom and dad (or their employers) pay for it. Of course young adults are jumping on the bandwagon.”

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

Arlen Specter and Chris Dodd can’t be happy with the defeat of fellow Democrat Jon Corzine in the New Jersey governor’s race. It has more to do with their own hopes of keeping their Senate seats next year than party loyalty.

Mr. Specter, who is seeking his sixth term representing Pennsylvania, and Mr. Dodd, looking for his sixth from Connecticut, were hoping Mr. Corzine’s strategy — accumulating a big war chest to fund a negative TV ad campaign against a less-known but better-liked candidate -– would bring back the Jersey governor from the political dead.

That’s because they, like Mr. Corzine a year ago, face daunting polling numbers. One of their former colleagues, GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, had been in a similar spot. But he decided not to seek re-election, and resigned his seat earlier this year.

Mr. Corzine trailed his GOP challenger by double-digits over the summer, but by Election Day he narrowed the gap, losing 49%-45% to Republican Christopher Christie with 6% going to independent Christopher Daggett. His campaign’s resurgence relied on a harshly negative campaign aimed at convincing New Jersey voters that while they didn’t like him, they would like Mr. Christie a lot less.

It’s pretty clear that Sens. Dodd and Specter, both of whom look like they will have to survive primary challenges, will have little choice but to use a similar approach of defining their lesser-known opponents. And given the advantages of incumbency, they should be able to come up with sufficient funds.

A Third-Party Gift

At this point, it does not appear that either senator will get the political gift that Mr. Corzine received: a major third-party candidate, who siphoned off some anti-incumbent votes. Before the election, Mr. Corzine’s poll numbers never rose above mid-40%, which meant that on Election Day virtually none of the previously undecided voters swung his way. Had it been just a two-man race, he might well have lost by a larger margin.

On July 14, a Quinnipiac University poll found that Mr. Christie led Mr. Corzine in a two-man race 53%-41%; in a three-way race, Mr. Christie led 47%-38% with 8% for Mr. Daggett. The same poll showed that 58% of New Jersey voters viewed Mr. Corzine unfavorably, 34% favorably. Conversely, Mr. Christie was viewed favorably by 39%, unfavorably by 20%, and 40% weren’t familiar enough with him to have an opinion.

A Quinnipiac poll released Monday, on the eve of the election, showed Mr. Christie ahead 42%-40%, with 12% for Mr. Daggett. That poll found Mr. Corzine’s favorably/unfavorable ratio had improved a bit, 39%-53%, while Mr. Christie’s had deteriorated, 41%-40%, apparently due to the Mr. Corzine attacks.

Now, a year before the 2010 midterm elections, both Sens. Dodd and Specter begin their re-election campaigns with more voters seeing them negatively than positively - never a good sign for a politician — and majorities saying neither deserves another term in the Senate.

Mr. Specter is in a statistical tie with former Republican Congressman Pat Toomey, trailing 43%-42% in an Oct. 1 Quinnipiac poll.

Moreover, just 44% of voters approve of Mr. Specter’s job performance, while 48% disapprove. Only 37% feel that he deserves re-election, compared with 52% who say he does not deserve a sixth term. These are his worst scores for both measures.

A Problem and an Opportunity

But both the problem and the opportunity for Mr. Specter is that he is in a dead heat even though 53% of Pennsylvania voters don’t know enough about Mr. Toomey to have an opinion of him. Should both men win their party nominations as they are favored to do, the contest will turn into a race to define Mr. Toomey for the people of Pennsylvania. Like Mr. Corzine, Mr. Specter is unlikely to change voters’ opinions about himself, since he has been in public life for 40 years.

His only route to victory: painting Mr. Toomey negatively.

The same is probably true for Mr. Dodd. After all, Connecticut voters disapprove of Mr. Dodd’s job performance by 49%-43%, and he now trails former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a possible Republican challenger, 44%-39%. The good news for Dodd is that margin is an improvement from his 48%-39% deficit in a July 23 Quinnipiac survey.

But there is other bad news for Dodd: By 51%-40%, Nutmeg State voters say he is neither honest nor trustworthy, and by 48%-40%, Connecticut voters have an unfavorable opinion. Meanwhile, Mr. Simmons gets a 41%-11% favorability rating with 46% not knowing enough about him.

Mr. Corzine’s loss is bad news for Sens. Specter and Dodd. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will lose re-election, but since they represent blue states, like New Jersey, Tuesday’s election is an ominous sign about their chances of being able to turn their fortunes around.

Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.

It wasn’t a good election for Democrats, of course. They lost the two biggest races, the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, the first a blue state they should own and the second now a swing state Democrats liked to think they had turned in the last two elections.

But Democrats can argue they won in the race that is most relevant to what is going on in Washington, the special eleciton for the 23rd congressional district in New York. That represents a victory in a traditionally Republican district, and a sign that GOP conservatives probably overplayed their hand by forcing a liberal Republican out of the race.

The broader lesson in all this, however, may simply be the signs of grumpiness all around. In each case, independent voters appear to have swung against the party holding the seat. And in New York, a wildly over-funded and universally known incumbent mayor, Michael Bloomberg, barely won against a wildly under-funded and unknown Democratic challenger. In the midst of an economic mess, voters don’t seem to like over-spending and over-reach, but more than that they seem unhappy with the status quo in general.

“Change” was a good theme for Barack Obama in 2008. It still might best capture the mood of voters.

Politico’s Jonathan Martin provides the five key things to watch for in the tight New Jersey governor’s race, “likely the most competitive of the three most closely watched contests in the nation Tuesday.” The contest between Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie—with independent Chris Daggett thrown in to make things more interesting—“is a rare test of which electoral factor is more decisive — an incumbent’s unpopularity or the structural politics of a state.”

The five factors Martin suggests watching: Can Corzine turn out the Democratic base? How will he do in Camden, Essex and Hudson counties? How will Christie do in Morris, Ocean and Monmouth counties? Will Daggett get close to or exceed double digits (and the higher the better for Corzine)? And, finally, how do the bellwether swing counties of Bergen and Middlesex go?
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, writing on Huffington Post, says he knows some conclusions that can be drawn ahead of time, regardless of outcome. “A big Republican win in Virginia will not be an earth mover, but instead confirm that the home of Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee is a toss up state that still swings Republican.” In New Jersey, he writes, “I believe the Democrats’ turnout operation should keep this race tight all night. If the race is instead a blowout, that can only be bad news for the Democrats. And for those second guessing the president’s active involvement in Corzine’s race, the fact is that Barack Obama had no choice but to jump head first into the Jersey fight.” Finally, in the race for an open House seat in New York’s 23rd congressional district: The rise of a conservative challenger to the Republicans’ hand-picked local candidate there, Scarborough writes “is less about Barack Obama than it is about a decade of bloated and corrupt Republican leadership in Washington, D.C. This race gave the same conservatives who helped drive Ronald Reagan’s victory and the 1994 Republican Revolution something to cheer about for the first time in a long time. It also gave them an opportunity to stick it to an incompetent GOP Establishment.”

Meantime, Mary Katharine Ham of the Weekly Standard, finds particular significance in lead Republican Bob McDonnell enjoyed going into election day. “The Virginia governor’s race has a history of going to the candidate of the party out of power, so a McDonnell win there is not as big a win as a Christie win in New Jersey would be, but the sheer dominance of McDonnell in this race— in almost all demographic groups, on almost all issues, and on energy, tone, and style, where the Obama influence should have lifted Deeds—utterly refute the idea that Obama was able to move the state from red to blue for the long haul. And further, that smart Republican candidates are learning lessons from 2008, and adopting practices to capitalize on the political climate. In a reversal of last year, it will be the energy of the Republican electorate, right-leaning Independents, and McDonnell’s campaign this year that likely will lift Republican down-ticket candidates to wins.”

Only elections can answer the intensity question, which is the most important factor in Tuesday’s off-year governor’s elections in New Jersey and Virginia and, increasingly, a special election in a New York congressional district. Intensity, as much as outcomes, may provide the best insight into national trends heading into the much more meaningful election in 2010.

Last year, Barack Obama and his Democrats owned the intensity factor. Lately it has seemed to lie with the Republicans. Anger is a great motivator, and there’s plenty of anger on the GOP side over Democratic plans for health care and government spending.

But what does that mean in a real election? Maybe the intensity factor will mean only that core Republicans who were going to vote anyway simply punch the button a bit harder. Or perhaps the intensity will extend to the growing ranks of independents, many of whom went Democrat last year but now may want to vent recent unhappiness by casting a vote the other way.

Heading into Tuesday, the intensity factor takes on a quite different form in each of the three big races:

See the full column here.

Americans have concluded within the past year that their financial firms and auto companies don’t work very well.

Many now seem to be drawing the same conclusion about their government, which, ironically, has been charged with saving those financial firms and auto companies.

The evidence for that conclusion arrives in the form of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which finds Americans holding in low esteem the government — and, in fact, much of Washington. To some extent, that’s natural in a country weary of war and still scared by the economy. But the level of skepticism — even cynicism — is high by historical standards and surprising given the extent to which whole swaths of the nation have leaned on their government for a bailout in recent months.

What accounts for this sentiment? Maybe a clue can be found in new congressional voting statistics showing that partisanship is just as entrenched in Washington in the age of Obama as it was before.

In the Journal/NBC News poll, Americans were asked how much of the time they trust the government in Washington to do the right thing; 65% said “only some of the time” and a stunning 11% said “never.”

See the full column here.

Time.com gives us the first look at the campaign book by Barack Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe. One interesting passage explains the now-famous Obama speech on race relations, which came in the wake of the controversy over incendiary sermons by Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Plouffe’s description shows just how much that high-stakes speech was done on the fly.

“The [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright story broke on a Wednesday and exploded across the media landscape the next day. We decided Obama had to take questions about [his former pastor's inflammatory sermons] head-on on Friday, in a series of lengthy national cable interviews.” But Obama decided after those interviews that they amounted to an unsatisfactory response to what was by then a raging controversy—so he decided he needed to do a speech. “We told him we agreed with the speech but that it was going to be hard to put it together,” Plouffe writes. “’Tonight is Friday — well, Saturday morning,’ I said. ‘We have to give this speech no later than Tuesday. You have a full schedule in Pennsylvania the next three days. It has already been publicized. If we start canceling events, it will fuel the impression that we’re panicked and our candidacy is on the rocks.’” Obama replied that he would “’work on this during downtime in the hotel room each night. Don’t worry. Even if I have to pull all-nighters, I can make this work.’ We were flying by the seat of our pants,” Plouffe writes.

Politico’s David Rogers interviews House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about health care, and finds her ready to acknowledge that the bill she’s helped assemble in the House isn’t all that she and her party’s liberals hoped it would be. But, Rogers writes, “her advice is to ‘declare victory’ and recognize that this is not the last word. ‘On any given day, success that upsets business as usual in Washington can be perishable. I don’t want to get too bogged down,’ Pelosi told POLITICO in an interview Thursday afternoon. ‘We are not passing a bill, shutting the door, turning out the lights and walking away. We will have other legislation.’ Nor is she much open to prolonging the public option insurance debate by allowing a floor debate on an amendment to insist on a more robust version than the one now in the House bill. ‘I’m not big on showing weakness. It’s not my thing,’ she said in the interview. ‘I don’t like to have predictable losses.’”

Robert Kirchhoefer at American Spectator offers an intiguing retrospective on 2008, chiding Republicans and conservatives for bailing out on Sen. John McCain and his candidacy. He notes that conservatives found that McCain wanting, and many apparently just stayed home on Election Day as a result of their dissatisfaction with him. He says that was a mistake, producing an administration that a little less than conservatives wanted, but one that’s a lot less than they wanted. “If we hope to change the world in the next election, we must not let our principles cripple our pragmatism. Ideology feeds aspirations; it cannot stand in place of them. The human condition is necessarily a pragmatic one. Until we can create the perfect president, we must make do with imperfect politicians. We must see their place in the larger picture as our best selves. Then, when they fall short — as they surely will do — we must scour the nation for better ones. We cannot turn back the tide of November, 2008, but we can learn from it. We can see that our votes, and lack of votes, have consequences.”

John Dickerson from Slate tries to put it in perspective: “From now until health care reform either passes or dies, there will be a series of daily eruptions that will rival the ones from August for passion, confusion, and mischief. Today’s installment was Sen. Joe Lieberman’s announcement…Because Democrats need 60 votes to end a filibuster, they need all 58 Democrats, plus independents Lieberman and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, to fight a unified Republican side. Without Joe, in other words, health care reform dies.

“This announcement caused a stir among certain kinds of liberals for two reasons. First, they hate Joe Lieberman with a pore-cleansing passion. The bill of particulars is long, but the primary inflammation comes from Lieberman’s support of George Bush’s Iraq policy and the senator’s suggestion that Democrats who opposed Bush were unpatriotic. He also suggested, during the campaign, that Barack Obama did not always ‘put his country first.’ Second, Lieberman saw fit to announce his effort to kill one form of the public option just as the idea was rising from the table at the morgue.”

And if you doubt Dickerson’s description of the loathing for Liebereman on the left, read Paul Begala on The Daily Beast analyzing the senator’s motivations: “It’s journalistic shorthand to note a politician’s party identification and state after his or her name. For example: Jane Doe (D-NY). And so Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is identified as (I-CT). But the ‘I’ does not stand for ‘Independent.’ It stands for “Insurance Industry.” Begala, who worked in Bill Clinton’s White House, harkens back to the senator’s opposition then to the Clinton health reform effort: “In 1993 and 94, Lieberman consistently opposed President Clinton’s reform bill—which did not have a public option. In case you’re keeping score at home, Lieberman will filibuster the Obama plan, which has a public option, and he opposed the Clinton reform plan, which did not. Anything that protects consumers, it seems, is a bridge too far for Sen. Lieberman. Lieberman sided with insurance companies against sick people, and with insurance companies against citizens who want to sue to protect their rights in court…. What he says today is that President Obama is ‘trying to do too much at once.’ Too much at once? Too much at once? Why didn’t that occur to Sen. Lieberman when we were fighting a war in Afhganistan, and he was cheerleading for an invasion of Iraq?” Too much at once? How about 4,351 dead American heroes who gave their lives in a war that Joe Lieberman didn’t think was doing too much?”

Meanwhile, Ken Blackwell on American Spectator reminds us that there’s another problem with health overhaul on the right that gets a lot less attention: the question of whether any bill that passes will provide federal funds for abortions. “When President Obama was asked about whether abortion was in his health care plan, he answered elliptically. He didn’t say it was or wasn’t. He said there was a ‘tradition in this town of not paying for abortion.’ But isn’t he the One elected on a platform of hope and change? Isn’t he the One who wants to re-found the American experiment?Liberals would never have supported him for President if he said — as Sen. Al Gore once said — that abortion should not be federally-funded…Obama would make no such mistakes in his triumphal march to the Presidency.” But, Blackwell writes, it becomes increasingly clear that Democrats do want to include abortion funding in the legislation. He writes that National Public Radio quoted liberal Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, as saying: “Comprehensive health care does include reproductive health care, prenatal and maternity care, screening for breast, cervical and other cancers or [sexually transmitted infections] abortion, contraceptive services. That these are basic health care for women [emphasis added] that we have a right to by virtue of our reproductive organs and our right to control our own bodies.” Blackwell concludes: “Thank you, Rep. Schakowsky. You have dispelled most admirably the fog of confusion emanating from the White House fog machine.”

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

There are differences between the states. To take the most incendiary, two men can marry in Massachusetts but not Montana.

But such differences are far more often the exception rather than the rule.

Now, as the powers-that-be meet behind closed doors to blend the various proposed health-care overhauls, one proposal gaining support would let states decide whether a government-run health insurance plan would be offered within their borders.

That possibility -– Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday it would be in the health care bill he is bringing to the Senate floor, and it is likely to be in the House bill, too — could have enormous implications for American society. After all, there are growing differences between various parts of this country in political views and values, not to mention lifestyles and livelihoods, that could influence how such a health-care option could work.

But other than everyone involved acknowledging that potential, no one really knows if and how the country will change if states get to make a choice on government-run health insurance. That’s because no one is sure how different jurisdictions would react.

Consumer Choices, Now and Later

Nor do we know how a “public option” will function compared to private insurers. We can’t be certain how consumers will view the relative merits of private versus public insurance, both when they are first given a choice and later when they see the differences in states with and without the option.

The question of the public option has become perhaps the most contentious in a polarized argument on Capitol Hill, with liberals and most other Democrats strongly in favor of creating a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

But with conservatives and virtually all Republicans just as firmly opposed to such an idea, the battle over the centrist Democrats — who control the fate of the legislation -– has concentrated on finding a way to make it sufficiently politically palatable to pass.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the eventual legislation signed by President Barack Obama were to give states the choice of deciding whether to offer a public option. The details would be potentially messy: What would trigger a state’s decision to participate? Would it be up to the governor, or legislature, or both? Would states be offered a one-time option to become part of some federal-run health care plan, or would they be allowed to opt in and then leave, and then come back in, depending on the political winds in their jurisdictions?

That isn’t such a far-fetched possibility, since the change in political control in a state could well dictate such a policy decision.

Different States, Different Systems

But once we get past the procedural details, there immediately arises the important matter of how having different health-care systems in different states will change the country itself.

Supporters of the public option predict that relatively few consumers will opt for it, while opponents argue it will drive the private insurers out of business.

Many expect that the states’ decisions would be predictable based on local political culture: The “red states,” those that tend to vote Republican and generally favor smaller state governments and lower taxes, will opt out, while the “blue states” will participate.

That’s certainly a reasonable thesis, although who knows whether it will turn out to be correct?

In any case, the more interesting question is whether offering or not offering the public option would translate into population migration and economic benefits or liabilities, especially when it comes to neighboring states.

Will some people migrate to states that offer it, perhaps because they are more trusting of government than insurance companies, while others head the other way for the opposite reason?

Then there is the matter of whether people attracted to states with the public option will be more or less likely to be a net plus to the accepting state’s economy, both in terms of their productivity and their need for government services.

It is unlikely that any migration patterns caused by differing health-care options, say between Ohio and Kentucky, or Maryland and Virginia, will have immediate effects on those states.

But just as differing attitudes towards taxes, spending, labor unions and size of government seemed to increase migration from the Frost Belt to the Sun Belt over the past half-century and resulted in economic winners and losers, differing health-care options between the states could also have serious long-term implications for the country.

Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.