‘Top Line’ — Palin’s Book Behavior May Hold Clues to Future Plans

ABC News’ Kim Berryman reports: November 17th, just over a year since the former Alaska governor and current Facebook account holder wasn't elected vice president, Sarah Palin will release her book “Going Rogue: An American Life”. Politico’s Jonathan Martin told ABC’s Top Line today that he will be watching Palin’s book tour closely for clues about her future aspirations.

“If it’s a book that’s defined by score settling, by getting even, that’s not what somebody who wants to start a serious national campaign would do. And we’ll also see exactly what she does on this book tour. Is she collecting names and email addresses?” Martin speculated.

Palin has been the source of national attention since Senator John McCain introduced her as his running mate in 2008. Despite popular Saturday Night Live skits and countless late night jokes aimed at the former candidate’s credibility, Martin maintains “she’s not just a politician, she’s a phenomenon, there are not half-mile lines out there for (Minnesota Governor) Tim Pawlenty.”

ABC News’ David Chalian and Rick Klein also asked Jonathan Martin about this morning’s announcement of a White House job summit as well as the President’s decision to travel to Asia in the midst of the healthcare debate.

ClickHERE to catch all of Jonathan Martin’s comments today.

Also on today’s Top Line, ABC welcomed USA Today’s Joan Biskupic author of American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The abortion issue raised by the Stupak amendment last week continues to fuel debates on Capitol Hill. When asked about Scalia’s possible views on the issue, Biskupic felt confident that the justice would respond with “I told you so.”

CLICK HERE to watch the entire interview with Joan Biskupic.

‘Top Line’ — Sen. Wyden: Lack of Choice in Health Care Bill Doesn’t Pass ‘Smell Test’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Almost lost in the coverage of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s decision to vote for the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill was Sen. Ron Wyden’s favorable vote — a slight surprise, since Wyden had been critical of what he sees as major shortcomings in the measure.

While Wyden, D-Ore., ultimately joined Snowe and all the committee’s Democrats in voting yes, he — like Snowe — is serving notice that he may not support the final product.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Wyden renewed his call to inject more choice into the health care system by allowing individuals — not just small businesses — to buy into the new “insurance exchanges” that would be created by the bill.

Intriguingly, Wyden used the White House’s own calls for ensuring choice in the health care system in making his case.

“I’ve made it very clear that when the White House and particularly [Press Secretary] Robert Gibbs talks about choice and competition about three times an hour, and then you have a bill that we’re told leaves 90 percent of the American people outside the marketplace — outside the exchanges — after seven years, that’s not going to pass the smell test,” Wyden told us.

“At every single rally you hear politicians stand up and say the American people ought to have choices like their member of Congress, and of course that’s what holds the insurance industry accountable,” Wyden said.

“And under this bill not only are most Americans not going to have choices like members of Congress, they aren’t going to get any choice at all, even when their insurance company is abusing them.”

Wyden is a longtime proponent of a different means of pursuing universal health coverage, encapsulated in a bill — the Healthy Americans Act, co-sponsored with Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah — that emphasizes individual choice over the current employer-based system.

Unless the current bill achieves a similar level of choice for individuals, Wyden said he won’t support it.

“I am trying to export the key principles of the Healthy Americans Act, particularly choice and competition, holding insurance companies accountable so the consumer gets more affordable coverage, to the final bill. And without that, the final bill is not going to have my support,” Wyden said.

Wyden’s amendment to open up the insurance exchanges to individuals was set aside in a parliamentary dispute in the Finance Committee — a fact that irked Wyden.

He’s still trying to include that component in the final bill, and yesterday engaged in an unusual Senate floor discussion with Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., that strongly suggested that a deal is in the works.

Wyden told us today: “I think we got our foot in the door, and I’ve talked at length with Chairman Baucus about it, with Chairman [Chris] Dodd, Senator [Harry] Reid,” the Senate majority leader.

Watch the full interview with Sen. Ron Wyden HERE.

We also chatted with Christina Bellantoni of Talking Points Memo about the pressures being applied by the political left in the health care debate, in addition to President Obama’s (brief) trip to New Orleans today.

We also got her take on the “Goatee Gamble” pitting ABC Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper against NBC’s Chuck Todd, with the Phillies-Dodgers playoff series (maybe) carrying bearded repercussions.

“Now I have a reason to care about baseball. I think Chuck could use a new look so you know, go Phillies,” Bellantoni said.

Click HERE for the full discussion with Christina Bellantoni.

‘Top Line’ — President Obama’s Blogger Problem

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Disappointment from the “Netroots” has been an early and repeated theme of President Obama’s time in office, with sharp disagreements between the White House and the political left over such areas as health care, gay rights, Afghanistan, Iraq, and civil liberties.

Those tensions reached a new blogospheric boiling point over the weekend, after CNBC’s John Harwood quoted an anonymous White House adviser’s reaction to the “Internet left fringe.” The adviser, Harwood said, told him that “those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.”

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, liberal blogger Jane Hamsher (not wearing pajamas) told us that the comment is emblematic of a White House that isn’t respecting the liberal activists who worked to elect Obama president. Many of those same liberals are dismayed to see a White House waffling in its commitment that a health care plan will include a “public option” to compete with private insurers.

“The White House very regularly calls bloggers ‘the left of the left,’ ignoring the fact that the majority of the country, 77 percent, wants a public option. This isn’t some fringe, lefty, loony thing,” said Hamsher, the founder of the liberal blog FireDogLake.

“[I]take it as a mark of pride for my profession that we’re being called Cheeto-eaters this morning,” Hamsher said. “We’re an independent political movement. We’re progressives, and progressives in the House are dismissed, progressives online are dismissed. You know, progressive values, progressive groups are only allowed access to the White House to the extent that they’re willing to torpedo progressive legislation.”

She added, “It’s not that we‘re some part of the Democratic Party that deserves respect. We’ve always had an independent political voice from the Democrats.”

Hamsher’s latest venture will test that proposition. Public Option Please is seeking to harness some of the same online energy that fueled Obama’s campaign to insist to lawmakers that a public option be included in a health care bill.

Marshall Ganz, a legendary figure in political organizing who helped design the Obama campaign’s field program in 2008, is helping Hamsher and her allies at Public Option Please find ways to make sure their voices are heard inside Washington.

“Ganz … said all along that Obama would not have been elected had he campaigned on politics of narrow self-interest,” Hamsher said. “And that that’s where the conversation about health care reform has taken place. We’re talking about bending the cost curve, and what we should be talking about is health care as a human right.”

“So we’re reaching out to young people, and trying to reach them through art, through music, you know, through other means to take hold and shape their own future,” she added. “And Obama, you know, sort of inspired that during the campaign, and then got into realpolitiks very fast. So that emotion had no place to go, and so we’re picking that up.”

Hamsher also promised to bring more pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to bring a vote on the public option to the Senate floor: “This whole idea that they’re going to water down the public option so that they don’t put Democratic senators in the position of having to actually state that they will filibuster is ridiculous. No. If they’re going to filibuster, make them say so. Nobody will say so for a reason. It is unprecedented. So the idea that we’re just going to sell this out to keep them from that uncomfortable position is not going to happen. And Harry Reid needs to start taking people’s gavels away [stripping committee chairmen of their titles] if it does happen.”

Harwood’s reporting sparked widespread anger among liberal bloggers, and prompted the White House to do some damage control today.

White House deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer told Greg Sargent, of The Plum Line blog: “That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we’ve held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth.”

Click HERE for the full interview with Jane Hamsher.

We also checked in with Politico’s Ben Smith (another blogger who, for the record, joined us fully and well-dressed), on the insurance industry’s last-ditch attempt to scuttle a health care bill, and tomorrow’s critical vote in the Senate Finance Committee.

We also got into some handicapping of the mayoral race in New York City, where Democrats have been unable to muster much outrage against Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt for a third term — a move that required him to get the City Council to toss out term limits for city officials.

Watch tht full interview with Ben Smith HERE.

‘Top Line’ Book Corner: Frank Luntz’s “What Americans Really Want … Really”

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Republican pollster and message guru Frank Luntz is out with a new book that makes use of extensive of survey results of ordinary Americans.

“What Americans Really Want…Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears”isn’t just about politics — though, as one might expect from Luntz, it contains sharp analysis with broad application in the political arena.

As for what Americans want out of their politics — Luntz said there are lessons in the fervor displayed at town-hall meetings across the country.

“They’re angry with the partisanship, they’re angry with the politics and that’s why they go to these town-hall meetings. It’s their only opportunity to be heard,” Luntz told us onABCNews.com’s “Top Line”today. “And I say this to those members who’ve started to cancel these town hall meetings: Boy, you’re making a big mistake. Let people vent now, or they will absolutely vent on election day.”

As for President Obama, Luntz said: “First off, they still like him as an individual. They like him as a person. But they are really turning against him in terms of his policies and where he’s moving forward. And so you’ve got this great dissonance. They don’t want to criticize him because they want him to succeed, but they don’t want to support him because they don’t want the policies to succeed. So they’re in this kind of quandary. And it’s one of the reasons why you see this anxiety and this frustration, this fear.”

Republicans, he said, should be asking the question “why?”: “The American people don’t expect them to have the answers, because they’re the party on the out, and let’s face it, there’s nothing they can do in the House because the speaker’s never going to listen to them. So they have to frame the right questions.”

Luntz’s book features some intriguing poll results, some of which you can view HERE.

One highlight: 72 percent of respondents said they agree with the statement, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Watch the interview with Frank Luntz (where he also asks Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Md., to intervene on behalf of his beloved Baltimore Orioles) HERE.

‘Top Line’: Pawlenty 2012 — the Romney Alternative?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty today launched his political action committee and a new Website — in the latest signals that he’s gearing up for a likely presidential run in 2012.

Politico’s Jonathan Martin today documents the impressive array of advisers Pawlenty, R-Minn., has already attracted to his side, building a team filled with extensive presidential resumes — including Terry Nelson, Sara Taylor, Phil Musser, Alex Conant, and Patrick Ruffini — plus other veteran Washington hands, such as Sam Geduldig and Michael Toner.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, we chatted with Martin about the political operation Pawlenty is already building — and how he’s trying to make an early splash to position himself as a viable alternative to former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., the once and almost certainly future presidential candidate.

“He’s trying to send a statement to kind of a political community of donors, of operatives and of journalists, ‘Look I’m here to play ball, I’m going to be the establishment alternative to Mitt Romney,’ ” Martin told us. “Everyone knows Romney is taking all the necessary steps you take to a second run, but there’s really sort of a drop off after that, there’s no clear center-right establishment figure. I think Pawlenty is moving very quickly — amazingly, quickly.”

While Pawlenty says his new PAC is about helping Republican candidates in 2010, and not his own potential ambitions beyond that, there’s a Wall Street Journal story linked prominently on his new Web site. The headline: “Gov. Pawlenty Paves Way for a 2012 Run.”

(Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., was scheduled to be on the program but had to cancel because of committee votes. We’ll work to get him on the show again soon.)

“Top Line” — Health Care Reform Without Adding to Deficit: Obama’s Impossible Dream?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama today reiterated his pledge that health care reform will “not add a dime to the deficit, now or in the future” — a critical component of his sales pitch to a public that’s growing increasingly concerned about government spending.

But is that a promise he can keep?

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said he doesn’t think so — not with health care spending growing far faster than the rate of new revenues.

“I think the fundamental problem is that if you cover everybody, you put everyone in a system that is growing too rapidly in costs, and is added onto an entitlement problem where we already don’t have the revenues to pay for it,” Holtz-Eakin told us. “And so you build a big problem up front and there’s no way to unwind that quickly. A way to get there is to be more patient and sequential. Cover targeted groups like working uninsured and as you get savings, channel them back in and cover more people.”

“But the political patience isn’t there for that. The promise has been made to cover everyone, and I don’t think it’ll ever add up,” he said.

Democrats’ last best chance at producing a product that doesn’t add to the deficit is likely to come this week, as the Senate Finance Committee finishes its long-delayed draft of a health care bill. The CBO is expected to release its cost estimates of that bill this week as well.

“They may be frustrated but this shouldn’t be a matter of surprise,” Holtz-Eakin said. “[CBO] put out in January their view of options that would change health care spending. They’ve worked with the staffs on all the drafts of the bills. They’ve talked about things that work [and] don’t work, nd so when they finally get down to putting out these final reports, everyone should know what’s coming. And what they’ll look at when they get a bill from the Senate Finance Committee is number one: How much does it cost? They’re not going to know for sure.”

Holtz-Eakin, who was a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, also joked about what it’s like to see the president own ideas McCain once espoused, such as subjecting health insurance coverage to taxation, and the creation of “high-risk pools” for those with preexisting health conditions.

“Democrats have been phenomenal advocates of most of the McCain plan,” he said. “They will in fact propose the entire McCain plan, and we’ll see how it happens. But substantively this isn’t the same proposal. . . . [T]hey’re going to make the effort to put out a bipartisan proposal in this way, but when the rubber hits the road it’s not there.”

Watch the full interview with Doug Holtz-Eakin HERE.

We also chatted with Politico columnist Roger Simon about the health care push and the latest trouble signs for the president in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Click HERE to see the discussion with Roger Simon.

“Top Line” — Health Care Reform Without Adding to Deficit: Obama’s Impossible Dream?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama today reiterated his pledge that health care reform will “not add a dime to the deficit, now or in the future” — a critical component of his sales pitch to a public that’s growing increasingly concerned about government spending.

But is that a promise he can keep?

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said he doesn’t think so — not with health care spending growing far faster than the rate of new revenues.

“I think the fundamental problem is that if you cover everybody, you put everyone in a system that is growing too rapidly in costs, and is added onto an entitlement problem where we already don’t have the revenues to pay for it,” Holtz-Eakin told us. “And so you build a big problem up front and there’s no way to unwind that quickly. A way to get there is to be more patient and sequential. Cover targeted groups like working uninsured and as you get savings, channel them back in and cover more people.”

“But the political patience isn’t there for that. The promise has been made to cover everyone, and I don’t think it’ll ever add up,” he said.

Democrats’ last best chance at producing a product that doesn’t add to the deficit is likely to come this week, as the Senate Finance Committee finishes its long-delayed draft of a health care bill. The CBO is expected to release its cost estimates of that bill this week as well.

“They may be frustrated but this shouldn’t be a matter of surprise,” Holtz-Eakin said. “[CBO] put out in January their view of options that would change health care spending. They’ve worked with the staffs on all the drafts of the bills. They’ve talked about things that work [and] don’t work, nd so when they finally get down to putting out these final reports, everyone should know what’s coming. And what they’ll look at when they get a bill from the Senate Finance Committee is number one: How much does it cost? They’re not going to know for sure.”

Holtz-Eakin, who was a top adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, also joked about what it’s like to see the president own ideas McCain once espoused, such as subjecting health insurance coverage to taxation, and the creation of “high-risk pools” for those with preexisting health conditions.

“Democrats have been phenomenal advocates of most of the McCain plan,” he said. “They will in fact propose the entire McCain plan, and we’ll see how it happens. But substantively this isn’t the same proposal. . . . [T]hey’re going to make the effort to put out a bipartisan proposal in this way, but when the rubber hits the road it’s not there.”

Watch the full interview with Doug Holtz-Eakin HERE.

We also chatted with Politico columnist Roger Simon about the health care push and the latest trouble signs for the president in the new ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Click HERE to see the discussion with Roger Simon.

“Top Line” — No Reward for Obama’s “Legislative Panic”: CEO of FreedomWorks says Congress should Start Over on Healthcare Reform.

ABC News’ Kim Berryman reports: President Obama’s hopes for a health care bill before the August recess are long gone and with the help of skeptics and concerned constituents, the administration’s sprint towards a bill this fall is now slowing to an uphill jog. This afternoon Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, a group “leading the fight for lower taxes, less government, and more freedom” said that hope for passing reform in 2009, is lost.

The White House used “an all or nothing strategy and I think they’re going to step out of this with nothing…I think enough Americans have raised opposition that the moderate democrats and the moderate republicans that they need to pass this reform are going to back away from this process and we’re going to start over and hopefully we do it right the second time” Kibbe predicted on ABC News’ “Top Line.”

As the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats push their political chips towards the center of the table on health care reform, it seems hard to imagine anyone settling for a do-over at this point in the game.

However, Kibbe insists that “passing a big reboot of the health care system is not something that the American public is eager to see right now.”

Instead of passing overall reform in a process of what he calls “legislative panic,” Kibbe suggests an incremental approach with bipartisan support and applauded the health insurance reforms put forth by Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina.

In the months of lobbying, committee meetings and White House phone calls, “the one group that [President Obama] cut out of the conversation was the public. They have an interest in this debate and they watched how the President passed the stimulus package and … the bank bailout last fall. They’re tired of these secretive, rushed legislative efforts,” Kibbe said.

The Obama administration has often voiced its desire to be more open with the public than the administrations that preceded it. Yet, with health care, the topic of transparency is a sore one. Just this summer, the Los AngelesTimes reported the White house’s reluctance to disclose a list of visitors coming by the famous mansion to discuss reform.

Obama himself is answering questions at town hall meetings in rapid succession this week. These meetings follow months of media coverage allowing him to explain the specific changes he had in mind. In ABC’s own Prescription for America special this June the president tried to make his plans clear to the American people. Despite these attempts, misunderstandings and disagreements among Americans have distracted the White House and congressional leaders from their selling points.

Just this week, Sen. ChuckGrassley, R-Iowa,a proponent of a bipartisan bill, addressed untruths about death panelsduring a town hall meeting.Meanwhile, the White House has launched a Reality Check website among other tools to address the more common concerns people have about health care.

“If you get an e-mail from somebody that says, for example, ‘Obamacare is creating a death panel,’ forward us the e-mail and we will answer the question that’s raised” President Obama said in a town hall meeting on Tuesday.

The hurdle health care will have to clear is the dread that many Americans like Kibbe associate with “the idea of government forcing anybody to buy insurance, particularly when they mandate what insurance that is.”

To see more of what Matt Kibbe told Top Line, click HERE.

Lizzie O’Leary, co-author of today’s eye-opening report from Bloomberg News,also stopped by the studio today to discuss her findings. The exclusive report by O’Leary and Jonathan D. Salant show that there are no fewer than six health care lobbyists for every member of the House and Senate.

To hear more about O’Leary’s report click HERE.

‘Top Line’ — Wheels Coming Off Obama Agenda?

It’s been a rough week for the Obama administration agenda — with health care stalled in an ugly congressional back-and-forth, and the White House on the defensive about the impact of the stimulus bill.

Today on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line,” Rick Klein and Jonathan Karl chatted with Politico.com’s Mike Allen about whether the Obama White House is concerned.

“They’re not worried the wheels are coming off,” Allen told us. “There is inarguable erosion in those numbers both with the independents and a couple states — Virginia and Ohio. You know, they knew that there was always a sugar high; they knew that these numbers were always artificial and they knew that 76 percent [approval] just doesn’t last when you’re doing hard things.”

“But the problem is this erosion is being focused on just as the time when the Congress is being asked to make very, very, very difficult decisions.”

Allen also provided some insight into the Democrats’ strategy for getting health care reform through Congress: “They’re having six listening sessions, which are basically therapy for House members to come, talk to the leaders and the chairmen about their problems, their needs, their desires, their demands so that they can make changes in this House bill on the front end before it comes out . . . . They’re trying to use these sessions to make changes now so that there will be a smoother path later. So you don’t have the . . . hilarious spectacle you had with the climate bill where people were literally asking Santa for things.”

We also chatted about the latest tussle between House Democrats and the CIA, debate over the stimulus bill, and Gov. Sarah Palin. Watch the interview with Mike Allen HERE and HERE.

(Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, was scheduled to be on today’s program but was a late scratch because of votes in the House. We’ll reschedule him for one day soon.)

‘Top Line’ — Is Sticker Shock Snagging Health Care Reform?

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Democrats’ bid to remake the nation’s health care system is hitting major snags in the Senate, where the first day of mark-ups in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has Republicans accusing Democrats of supporting runaway government spending.

At the same time, the Senate Finance Committee is delaying consideration of its own health care bill until after the Fourth of July congressional recess, amid growing concerns among members of both parties about the plan’s cost.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a senior member of the HELP committee, said that while it’s impossible to know the full impact of a bill that’s only partially written, he’s estimating that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s bill would cost between $2 trillion and $4 trillion over 10 years.

“See, we don’t even have the whole bill,” Alexander told us. “We don’t have the part about the employer mandate. We don’t have the part about expansion of Medicaid — that’s several hundred billion dollars. We don’t have the part about a government insurance program. And if you take the Congressional Budget Office letter that they sent to us, and you go out three or four years until the part that we do have is actually in place, it’s more like a $2 trillion addition to the debt. So, the Kennedy bill is probably $2-to-$4 trillion on top of the debt we already have, which is absolutely impossible for us to do as a country.”

The Congressional Budget Office this week estimated that Kennedy’s bill would cost $ 1 trillion over 10 years. That estimate prompted the White House to point out that President Obama is not endorsing any specific measure.

On “Top Line,” Alexander ruled out support for a public option, which he said “would lead us to a Washington takeover of healthcare.”

He also dismissed a proposal from former Senate majority leaders Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, and Howard Baker, that would include a new fee on larger businesses that don’t offer health coverage to their employees, in an effort to pay for health reform.

“I don’t like the idea of a tax on businesses,” Alexander said. “I mean, Tennessee’s a big auto state. We have a lot of auto suppliers. They do in Michigan and the Midwest as well, and every one of them is trying to think about, ‘How can I keep my costs down to keep my jobs from moving to Mexico?’ So if we put a big cost on the top of employers, we’re going to lose jobs in this country. We already saw what happened to the auto industry in the Midwest.”

Watch our full interview with Sen. Alexander, where we also get his take on Judge Sonia Sotoyayor and the scandal involving Sen. John Ensign, HERE.

Also today, we talked with liberal blogger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com about her efforts — working alongside prominent conservative bloggers — to block additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could President Obama’s plan to remake financial regulations offer another opportunity for this kind of unlikely teamwork?

Watch the interview with Jane Hamsher HERE.