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Earlier this week, Senate Democrats finally unveiled their healthcare reform legislation. Despite all the squabbling that's gone on over the public option the bill does, like its House counterpart, contain a plan for a government-run insurance provider. However, there are a number of important differences between the two proposals. Assuming Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid musters together the 60 votes necessary to get his version through the Senate, there are going to be a number of points that negotiators will need to work out in committee. Here are some of the most important differences between the bills.

Public Option: Will states be allowed to “opt out”?

Both bills include the creation of a government-run insurance provider to compete with private insurers. However, the Senate version would allow states to opt out of the public plan.

Abortion: The Stupak Legacy

To garner much-needed support from anti-abortion Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allowed them to attach the infamous Stupak-Pitts amendment to her chamber's version of the bill. The provision would bar women who are receiving federal subsidies for their insurance from purchasing plans that cover elective abortions. It would also bar the public plan from offering abortion coverage. The Senate version takes a more moderate approach: Those receiving federal subsidies could buy insurance that covers abortion -- but insurers would have to place federal money in separate accounts and could only use private dollars to cover the procedure. The public plan could also offer abortion coverage, as long as it segregated federal subsidies in the same way.

Cost: The difference a year makes

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill would cost about $1.052 trillion and reduce the deficit by $138 billion. The CBO predicts that the Senate bill would cost $849 billion, while cutting $130 billion from the deficit. This difference is largely due to the fact that many major provisions in the Senate proposal would not go into effect until 2014 -- a year later than in the House bill.

Coverage: Universal? Not quite

For decades, the Democrats talked of providing universal healthcare. These bills come closer, but neither quite reaches that goal. Both, however, will significantly reduce the number of uninsured. Today, 83 percent of non-elderly legal residents have health insurance. (The elderly are covered by Medicare.) Under the House bill, 96 percent of that population would be covered by 2016. The Senate's legislation would expand coverage to 94 percent. Still, about 18 million people would remain uninsured under the House's proposal, as would about 23 million in the Senate's.

Paying the bills: What gets taxed

Under the House bill, much of the money to pay for the reforms would be raised through a 5.4 percent surtax on high-income people -- that is, individuals making more than $500,000 a year or couples with annual incomes in excess of $1 million. The Senate version, on the other hand, would impose a different series of new taxes including: A 40 percent tax on “Cadillac health plans” (employer-sponsored group plans with premiums of over $8,500 for individuals or over $23,000 for families); the introduction of annual fees for health care companies; an increase in Medicare payroll taxes from 1.45 percent to 1.95 percent for those earning more than $250,000 a year and the implementation of the so-called "Botox tax," which is a five percent tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures.

Employer mandates: Do companies need to offer health insurance?

The House bill stipulates that employers with payrolls of more than $500,000 must offer health coverage or pay a federal tax. The Senate version does not explicitly require employers to provide coverage; however, companies with 50 or more full-time employees would have to pay a penalty of $750 per employee if they fail to offer coverage and if any of their employees obtain federally subsidized care via the new health insurance exchanges.

Friday, Senate Democratic leaders agreed to include the Wyden amendment in their healthcare proposal. Under this provision, employers would have one of two options. Companies could offer their employees a single plan and give all eligible workers the option of accepting a voucher to independently purchase their own insurance. Alternatively, an employer could offer two or more health care plans, provided that at least one has a premium that costs no more than the average premium of the two least expensive health plans in the local exchange. The House bill includes no comparable language.

Individual mandates: Penalties for remaining uninsured

Both bills require most Americans to maintain a minimum level of health insurance. However, the penalties for not doing so are much stiffer in the House bill: Those who failed to acquire insurance would pay a tax equal to 2.5 percent of their gross income of over $9,350 for individuals or $18,700 for couples. Under Reid’s legislation, the penalties would start at $95 per person in 2014 and gradually go up to $750 a head in 2016.

Insurance Exchanges: State-based or national

Both bills would create some sort of health insurance exchange, a marketplace where individuals and small companies can shop for insurance and compare benefits and prices. The exchanges would put individuals into large risk pools, which are intended to provide them with leverage to purchase insurance at a lower cost. The House bill would create a national exchange, although states could petition to run their own exchanges as well. Under the Senate proposal, states would form their own exchanges. This, however, could prove problematic, as it is unclear whether state exchanges would be able to attract a sufficient number of enrollees to push for lower premiums.

Illegal Immigrants

The House bill would allow illegal immigrants to buy insurance from the exchanges, but would not allow them to obtain federal subsidies. The Senate version prohibits illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance from these exchanges, even if they could pay for their own coverage in full. This could have the effect of preventing illegal immigrants from buying individual insurance altogether.

It's been an odd day for political videos, and on both sides of divide, no less.

On the right, there's a preview for a movie about the Tea Parties floating around. And yes, it's just as corny, melodromatic and self-important as you'd think.

Then there's a public service announcement, scheduled to air over Thanksgiving, that features NFL players tossing a football around with kids and, um, President Obama. That one, too, is just plain weird -- you don't often expect to see New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on the White House lawn. Plus, the shot in that commercial that involves Obama slowly appearing on screen in order to catch Brees' pass is so forced that it just looks like unintentional self-parody. (Also, Obama, who's almost 50 years old, can apparently burn an All-Pro safety. Who knew?)

Both videos are below.

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who lost a close race in a special election for an upstate New York Congressional seat earlier this month, has already retracted the concession he made on election night. Now, though, he has to decide whether he'll try to challenge Democrat Bill Owens' win in court.

A spokesman for Hoffman, Rob Ryan, says Hoffman will be making that decision "over the weekend," according to CQ Politics' Emily Cadei.

Over the past two days, after Hoffman officially unconceded, victory in the current count has become mathematically impossible for him. The third-party candidate had hoped to gain on Owens during the tally of absentee ballots, but as the count stands now, it's actually Owens who's picked up a net of 61 votes during the process.

There was some measure of hope for Hoffman's supporters on Thursday, though, due to a report in a local publication that a virus had affected voting machines. An election watchdog has debunked that claim, however.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can rest at least a little bit easier tonight. As he heads into the first vote in his chamber on Democrats' healthcare reform bill, he knows he has at least one senator who was wavering on his side.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said Friday that he will vote with his fellow Democrats Saturday night on a cloture motion that will allow the Senate to begin debating the legislation.

"Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct," Nelson said in a statement. "That's what the vote on the motion to proceed is all about. It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill released Wednesday .... If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"

Another key vote, though, remains uncommitted. Majority Whip Dick Durbin had said Friday that Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., had told Reid how she'll vote, implying that she, too, was a yes. He's since walked that back, however, and Lincoln remains publicly uncommitted. So does Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

Elsewhere on Salon today, there's a great piece from Joe Conason on Lincoln and her vote. You can read it here.

For the second time this week, a reliable pollster shows President Obama's approval rating falling below 50 percent. On Wednesday, it was Quinnipiac; now, it's Gallup. This new survey will likely prove the more symbolically important of the two, due to Gallup's long history and the weight it's given.

49 percent of respondents in Gallup's poll said they approve of the job Obama's doing, compared to 44 percent who disapprove. According to the pollster, Obama's fall below the 50 percent threshold is the fourth fastest of all the presidents in the post-World War II era. Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton beat him to the mark.

That said, the value of these numbers is mostly symbolic, and if history's any guide, it's likely that he'll be back up over 50 percent soon. But this kind of data has a way of scaring members of Congress who are unsure about whether or not to back the president.

Generally speaking, primaries are where ideological fights play out. And it looks like we may have some interesting battles to watch next year in a few key Senate races. Both parties are now split by fights over whether it's better to support compromises to achieve shared goals or go down fighting. These divisions, in turn, are fueling some pretty heated show-downs.

There have been some noteworthy developments in all this intra-party Senate feuding lately. Here's the latest:

• In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln is feeling pretty squeezed. A moderate Democrat who’s never had to worry too much about reelection before, Lincoln is currently surprisingly weak against third-tier Republican challengers. A new poll shows her leading state Sen. Gilbert Baker 41 percent to 39, and state Sen. Kim Hendren 45 to 29. But just in case her response to the threat is to go all Joe Lieberman on the president’s agenda, she’s got a fellow Democrat, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, lurking on her left, threatening a primary challenge.
• When Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced that he'd be running for Senate, he was immediately considered a shoo-in. That status seems to have melted away. A new poll has the moderate Republican leading the conservative he'll be facing in the primary, former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, by only 10 points. Rubio has fast become a favorite on the right, appearing on the cover of the National Review and getting the coveted keynote speaking slot at the CPAC conference. He’s tying Crist, a once-vocal supporter of the stimulus package, to President Obama in much the same way that, say, Ned Lamont once tied Sen. Joe Lieberman, formerly D-Conn., to then-President Bush.
• Being an old party warhorse is no longer good enough to guarantee Sen. John McCain’s reelection in Arizona, apparently. Though the former presidential candidate has never been beloved by his state party’s base, his reelection has never really been in doubt. It probably isn’t now either, but it depends now on what a potential opponent decides. Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., is weighing a primary challenge, and McCain's lead over Hayworth in one poll stands at just two points, 45 to 43. Hayworth was defeated for reelection in 2006, but clearly retains a connection with the Arizona conservative base. He was especially known for his hard-line stance on immigration, an issue that has dogged McCain among Republicans for years.

The best-kept secret in Washington has nothing to do with nuclear codes or Dick Cheney's undisclosed location. It's this: Al Gore is actually pretty funny. Funny enough, in fact, that he managed to raise a daughter who wrote for "Futurama." (Also "Saturday Night Live," but let's just forgive her for that.)

Gore does pop up now and then doing cameos in various comedies -- like Thursday night's episode of "30 Rock." He's always at his best when he's making fun of himself, as he's done a couple times in "Futurama," and this was no different. Watch it below.

Quick! Someone look for ACORN operatives; check around every corner, under every cushion, down every alley -- they must be somewhere, because Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman now has no chance of winning the special Congressional election held in upstate New York earlier this month without a recount.

Late Wednesday, Hoffman retracted his concession, charging ACORN and other nefarious actors with having stolen the election from him. He'd gotten a glimmer of hope because of corrected vote totals that showed Democrat Bill Owens with a smaller margin of victory than was originally reported, and because absentee ballots hadn't yet been counted.

But Hoffman's chances of prevailing, even after the new numbers were in, were always slim. And on Thursday, victory for the conservative favorite officially became mathematically impossible: With 3,072 absentee ballots remaining uncounted, Owens led by 3,105 votes.

Hoffman's campaign hasn't ruled out the idea of challenging the results, though even his spokesman has always sounded skeptical about the idea of a comeback win.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., isn't worried about Democrats getting angry if he votes with Republicans to filibuster healthcare reform legislation. But the reason for his lack of concern that he gave Politico this week may make some liberals even madder:

After what I went through in 2006, there’s nothing much more that anybody [who] disagrees with me can try to do.

Ouch.

The first of a series of important votes on Senate Democrats' healthcare reform bill is slated to take place on Saturday, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced at a press conference on Thursday.

The vote will merely open debate on the bill, and there's still a long way to go before passage. But every vote that involves moving the bill forward is being closely watched, and Republicans have put wavering Democrats on notice that they'll be portraying even a vote in favor of opening debate as one supporting the legislation.

At the press conference, Reid wouldn't say he was sure he had all of the 60 votes he'll need to prevail on Saturday. "We'll find out," he told reporters.

If the New York Times is right, we won't have Rudy Giuliani to kick around next year, because he's decided not to make a run for governor.

There's been no official announcement so far -- the Times sources their report to "people who have been told of the decision." And the National Review's Jim Geraghty writes that he has "a reliable source close to Giuliani" who says the former mayor of New York City hasn't yet made a decision.

If Giuliani has opted not to get in the race, thoughl, it probably would be a good decision. It'd be one thing if he were running against incumbent Gov. David Paterson, whose unpopularity rivals even former Vice President Dick Cheney's. But Paterson's widely expected to lose in his quest for the Democratic nomination to state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who'd be a much more formidable opponent in the general election. And if Giuliani loses two races in two years, especially after the way his presidential campaign crumbled, he'd stand to lose quite a bit in terms of his credibility and visibility in politics as well.

Update: The New York Daily News is reporting that Giuliani will be announcing, within the next 48 hours, that he's not running for governor, but is running for Senate instead, against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand was appointed to fill out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's term -- Clinton, as you may remember, won election to the Senate in 2000 after Giuliani opted not to run against her.

Update 2: For what it's worth, Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella e-mailed Politico's Ben Smith to deny the report that he's decided to run for Senate. That said, a situation like this, when a politician is pondering a run for office, official denials aren't necessarily all that trustworthy. That's not to say Comella's denial is definitely not credible -- or that it is credible -- just that, in general, the decision to run is generally denied right up until the point when it's announced.

What I said in my last post, about Doug Hoffman representing the conservative id, especially now, when he makes completely nonsensical claims about ACORN stealing an upstate New York Congressional election from him? I'll admit it: I had no idea how right I was.

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, got lucky with the timing of its latest survey. That's because PPP asked respondents, "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?"

Fully 26 percent of respondents said they believe ACORN stole the election for Obama, compared to 62 percent who said they think he won it fair and square. 12 percent weren't sure.

The numbers were even more revealing when broken down along partisan lines. A majority of Republicans -- 52 percent -- think ACORN stole the presidency, while just 27 percent said they believe Obama's office is legitimately his.

The fervor in conservative ranks for an unknown candidate running in a special Congressional election in upstate New York was never really about Doug Hoffman the man, at least not as much as it was about Doug Hoffman, expression of the right's id. Who he actually was, what he actually believed and whether he had any real political skills, these were secondary questions at best, after what really mattered: He was more conservative than Dede Scozzafava, the official Republican candidate.

Hoffman and his supporters did succeed in pushing Scozzafava out of the race just days before the election was held, but on Election Day, it all seemed to be for naught, as Hoffman lost to Democrat Bill Owens.

But since then, it's become clear that vote totals in some parts of the district weren't reported accurately the night of the election, and Owens' margin of victory shrunk as a result. So now, after having been pressed by Glenn Beck, Hoffman has another chance to be that raw expression of conservative id.

In a message to supporters released Wednesday night, Hoffman officially withdrew his concession, saying he'd now work to stop the election from being stolen by a collection of nefarious figures.

An excerpt:

As evidence surfaces, we find out that reported results from election night were far from accurate. ACORN and the unions did their best to try and sway the results to Obamacare supporter Bill Owens. I was forced to concede after receiving two pieces of grim news - - down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night - and barely won my stronghold in Oswego County. On Election Night, the information we received was far different from what we received this week! Rest assured, they will not succeed, and I am therefore revoking my statement of concession. That is why I am writing you today. Recent developments leave me to wonder who is scheming behind closed doors, twisting arms and stealing elections from the voters of NY-23. I'm sure you are as dismayed as I am to learn of the mischief that took place in Oswego and neighboring counties. We know this would not be the first time for the ACORN faithful to tamper with democracy.

This is fanciful, to put it mildly. First of all, despite the corrected vote totals, it appears clear that Hoffman can't win, even after all absentee ballots have been tallied. And the accusation that ACORN is somehow behind the vote counting -- that it is working behind the scenes at election boards is just ludicrous.

The impulse on the right to see ACORN as responsible for every evil in the world has now apparently gone so far that this accusation doesn't even relate to the one usually leveled at the group, that it's working to register non-existent voters in order to cast fraudulent votes in favor of Democrats. (That accusation, too, is false.) Beyond that, there's this simple thing to remember about ACORN: It works in urban areas. The district in which Hoffman ran is decidedly not ACORN territory.

Republican governors gathered outside Austin Wednesday to crow about their two newest colleagues in Virginia and New Jersey. But one of their newest ex-colleagues was also busy Wednesday, kicking off her book tour. And like anywhere in politics lately, Sarah Palin was inescapable at the Republican Governors Association meeting.

Both of the GOP candidates who won gubernatorial elections this month, Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey, had avoided Palin during their campaigns. And yet the crowd she drew for a book event in Grand Rapids, Mich., made it clear that Republicans can't really afford to alienate her supporters. So McDonnell and Christie offered some wan excuses for why they hadn't embraced Wasilla High School's most famous alumna as they sought office.

"The people I asked to come in to campaign for me were either someone like Mayor [Rudy] Giuliani, who I had known for the better part of a decade, or two governors who had faced the same kind of things and could talk about those issues in an intelligent way to show how Republican ideas had fixed those fiscal problems in their states," Christie said. Those two governors were Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, and Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty. Presumably, Christie didn't mean to imply that Palin wouldn't have been able to talk about issues in an intelligent way.

McDonnell said it was just a matter of the schedule. "She was in such incredible demand, frankly, for the longest time we were just not able to work out anything for her to come in," he said. "And then, after she decided to leave office [in July], we had pretty much already arranged all of the folks that we had for the home stretch for fundraisers -- including several current and former governors -- so we pretty much had our strategy set at that point." Because, you know, campaigns tend to plan everything out months in advance and not make any last-minute additions to the schedule once it's set.

The RGA, though, isn't above using Palin to raise money, even if its newest members were a little wary of how the independent voters they were trying to appeal to would respond to her. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the group's chairman, told reporters Tuesday that the RGA was happy to accept Palin's offer to sell them a number of copies of her new book, "Going Rogue," at a discounted price -- the better to auction them off to donors with.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold the big coming-out party for his version of healthcare reform legislation on Thursday. Wednesday evening, though, Reid and other Senate Democrats gave reporters a preview at a press conference held after a caucus meeting at which he presented them with the bill.

"Tonight begins the last leg of this journey that we've been on now for some time," Reid said. "This bill is going to do good things over the next 10 years for so many different people in our society." Reid made sure to emphasize a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the bill would reduce the deficit by $127 billion over the next 10 years, and perhaps as much as $650 billion over the 10 years after that. He also worked to reassure worried seniors that the bill will not weaken Medicare -- in fact, he argued, it will strengthen it. (Video of Reid's remarks is below.)

The bill reportedly includes a compromise version of the public option, one that would allow individual states to opt out of the new government-run insurance provider the legislation would create. It also contains a restriction on federal funding for abortion, though not the language used in the controversial Stupak amendment contained in the House's reform bill. So far, pro-choice lawmakers seem happy with Reid's language.

President Obama, too, has weighed in on the announcement of the bill.

"Today we passed another critical milestone in the health reform effort with the release of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

"From day one, our goal has been to enact legislation that offers stability and security to those who have insurance and affordable coverage to those who don’t, and that lowers costs for families, businesses and governments across the country. Majority Leader Reid, Chairmen Baucus and Dodd, and countless Senators have worked tirelessly to craft legislation that meets those principles .... I look forward to working with the Senate and House to get a finished bill to my desk as soon as possible."