Houston DWI Attorney Paul B. Kennedy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In Congress these days, the health care debate is as much about patience as patients.

In a closed-door meeting of feisty House Democrats this past week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., served notice that in these final days before the Senate and House present comprehensive bills to overhaul the nation's system, hers is running short.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., had interrupted Pelosi's presentation about one version of the bill with questions about its cost. According to Pomeroy and others, she cut him off - twice - with a question of her own:

Is there any version you could support?

Yes, Pomeroy said, but not the one most likely to succeed.

Pelosi moved on.

To the White House and Democratic leaders, Pelosi's question is the only one that matters at this late date. The answers help divide lawmakers into two columns: "yes" and "yes, if" under certain conditions. In another private meeting Friday, Pelosi forced her rank and file on the record by asking for a show of hands to register support for the public option plan she prefers.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., select committee chairmen and senior White House officials are meeting nightly in search of a bill that could win the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

At the White House, President Barack Obama is willing to play lobbyist in chief, but first he needs a bill.

So close to that pivot point and getting close to year's end, it's no longer a debate about whether there will be a health care bill. The questions are when, how - and who can compromise.

Democratic leaders expect their members, looking ahead to next year's elections, to vote for a health care bill despite any misgivings. But the vote-counters have no real way of knowing until each chamber produces a bill.

That's why negotiators have slogged through months of hearings, hundreds of amendments and meetings with members that require interminable listening, waiting, reassuring, cajoling and answering questions from the recalcitrant.

For Reid and Pelosi, that process continues. Making a member feel heard - and promising something he or she can boast about at home - can pay off.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., sent out a blaring news release Friday after her meeting with Reid, saying she raised "the unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid and the special concerns I have about teaching hospitals." She said he understood these challenges and considered ways to address the problems.

Patience is limited, however.

Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had a testy exchange after Schumer made comments on cable news that some saw as pressuring the Nevada Democrat to make up his mind about putting a government-run insurance option in the Senate bill.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said Friday that patience among negotiators runs out "a little more often now" than earlier in the process.

"I say, 'Hey, we are in this together. Sixty votes. Let's keep our eye on the ball,'" he said.

The pressure on Democratic lawmakers is enormous.

The success of a health care bill is largely the success of the Democrats who control Congress and the president they helped elect. In a time of lingering recession, there is no more compelling pocketbook issue than health care overhaul. It's an effort that's intensely personal because it could affect eve! ry Ameri can.

Much depends on each lawmaker's needs - political, substantive, even temperamental - leading up to an election in which all 435 House members and one-third of the 100-member Senate face election. The calculus is different for each member on the fence.

The vote of one might hinge on fear of voters' cries about government-run health care. A lawmaker with an eye on growing deficits might want to know about containing costs. What someone might really want is the ego-stroke and the political cover of a personal appeal from the president.

An awkward meeting with Obama in the Oval Office Thursday evening illustrated just how far senators are from putting those pieces together. The only takeaway not likely to be disputed: Reid grabbed an apple on the way out.

Neither of the government-run options had received pledges of support from 60 senators but both could hit that threshold, Reid told Obama, according to congressional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive talks.

One version would use the public option as a threat that would kick in if private insurers do not lower premium costs by certain deadlines. Some liberal senators would have trouble voting for that one, Reid said. The other would allow states to opt out of the public option, chief proponent Schumer told Obama.

The meeting ended with the president pledging to help rally support for whichever version crosses the 60-vote threshold first.

For Reid, it was back to his office and the phones. On Friday, Reid was meeting one on one - with no staff - with Landrieu, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Baucus, whose committee had passed one of the two Senate health care bills.

"We're having a debate, and members have to reflect and represent their districts," Pelosi said. "And we're hearing from them."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health care legislation taking shape in the House carries a price tag of at least $1 trillion over a decade, significantly higher than the target President Barack Obama has set, congressional officials said Friday as they struggled to finish work on the measure for a vote early next month.

Democrats have touted an unreleased Congressional Budget Office estimate of $871 billion in recent days, a total that numerous officials acknowledge understates the bill's true cost by $150 billion or more. That figure excludes several items designed to improve benefits for Medicare and Medicaid recipients and providers, as well as public health programs and more, they added.

The officials who disclosed the details did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Some moderate Democrats have expressed reluctance to support a bill as high as $1 trillion. Last month, Obama said in a nationally televised address before a joint session of Congress that he preferred a package with a price tag of around $900 billion.

Obama also said he would not sign a bill that raised deficits, and the CBO estimates the emerging House bill meets that objective. Officials said the measure would reduce deficits by at least $50 billion over 10 years and perhaps as much as $120 billion.

Democrats also said the bill would slow the rate of growth of the giant Medicare program from 6.6 percent annually to 5.3 percent.

"The bill will be paid for over 10 years. It will reduce costs but also will not add a dime to the deficit" in future years, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a news conference.

St ill, Obama's speech provoked enough concern among House Democrats that senior presidential aides were called to a meeting in the Capitol to explain precisely what the president had in mind when he set the $900 billion target.

The figure of $871 billion "is a coverage number. I think the White House has made that very clear. It is a number about coverage," Pelosi said recently when asked about the size of the measure.

Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for the White House, said, "The speaker is working on a plan that meets with the president's price tag of around $900 billion for health insurance reform and will not add a dime to the deficit."

House Democrats took steps to fulfill another of Obama's goals during the day, announcing their legislation would completely close a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage within a decade, five years faster than originally contemplated.

In addition, Pelosi said, "as of Jan. 1, 2010, our legislation will give a 50 percent discount for brand-name drugs to recipients in the donut hole and it will reduce the size of the donut hole by $500."

After months of delay, Democrats in the House and Senate are aiming for votes next month on legislation to fulfill Obama's goal of expanding coverage to millions who lack it, banning insurance industry practices such as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions and slowing the growth in health care spending nationally. The House bill will also lift the insurance industry's exemption from federal anti-trust laws, a provision under consideration in Senate negotiations as well.

With time growing short, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are struggling independently with the most controversial of all issues involved with health care, proposals for a government-run insurance option to compete with private industry.

In the House, Democrats have tent! atively concluded they cannot win passage of the provisions favored by most liberals, one calling for a nationwide government-run plan with payments to doctors and hospitals linked to rates paid by Medicare. It was unclear what fall-back plan was under consideration, but the internal disagreement cast doubt on plans to publicly unveil legislation early next week.

Across the Capitol, Reid, D-Nev., assessed support for a nationwide government-run insurance option that would allow states to opt out of the system. While the plan evidently enjoys a clear majority, it is uncertain whether it can command the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.

Democrats hold 60 votes in the Senate, but one, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has spoken out strongly against a so-called public option. A few other members of the rank and file have been non-committal.

One, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., met with Reid during the day and later issued a statement saying she was encouraged that a compromise might be possible. She also added pointedly that she had told Reid about "the unique challenges Louisiana is facing in terms of Medicaid and the special concerns I have about teaching hospitals," a possible signal that easing home-state concerns could influence her vote on the larger, national question of a government-run insurance option.

Also opposed is Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican this year who has voted for a Democratic-drafted health care bill in committee. As an alternative, she favors allowing the government to step in only if there is insufficient competition in the private insurance industry.

Nor was it clear whether Democrats would be able to enlist additional Republicans. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, frequently mentioned by Democrats as a potential convert, said in an interview, "We can't afford the health care system that we have right now. And if we can't afford th! e one we have right now, how are we going to afford another one that's going to cost more money."

For Reid, the question of a government-run option is one of a many thorny issues to be settled before he can bring health care legislation to the Senate floor. He and senior committee chairmen have been meeting with top White House aides in recent days to produce a bill, and hopes of largely wrapping up the work by the end of the week went unfulfilled.

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Eds: Associated Press writers Chuck Babington, Laurie Kellman and Erica Werner contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's relief at the agreement that could quiet the political crisis over Afghanistan's spoiled election masks his predicament as he weighs an expansion of the unpopular Afghanistan war.

The administration says its ambitious plans for Afghanistan rely on a "credible partner" in Kabul. But there is no guarantee that the hastily arranged voting will confer the legitimacy the fraudulent Aug. 20 election lacked.

No matter who wins the November election runoff that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai agreed to during pressured consultations with American leaders, the United States is wedded to a shaky government in which corruption has become second nature.

"This has been a very difficult time in Afghanistan to not only carry out an election under difficult circumstances, where there were a whole host of security issues that had to be resolved, but also postelection a lot of uncertainty," Obama said Tuesday.

Obama pointed to the Nov. 7 runoff as "a path forward in order to complete this election process." He said nothing about his deliberations over what could be a huge surge of U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan, a calculation badly thrown off by the botched August voting.

For the U.S., a runoff emerged as perhaps the least bad option to restore momentum and the important perception that Afghans themselves are invested in their government and its success. Karzai's chief political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, agreed Wednesday to participate in the run-off.

"You have to learn from mistakes, and everybody needs to do that here," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who stood with Karzai for an awkward announcement of the run! off plan . He said Afghan officials and international election shepherds must work fast to get standards and plans that all agree on.

Another election risks the same fraud that derailed the Aug. 20 vote, and the same risk of inciting violence and increasing ethnic divisions.

If there are any more delays, the vote could also could be hampered by winter snows that block off much of the north of the country starting mid-November.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a warning to Afghan election officials.

"We will advise the Independent Election Commission not to re-recruit those officials who might have been involved in fraudulent electoral processes," Ban said. "And we will ensure to make all administrative and technical (measures) to ensure that this election will be carried out in a most fair and transparent manner."

Having pushed for a do-over, U.S. officials have even less ability to scold the winner. That winner is likely to be incumbent Karzai, who conceded Tuesday, under heavy international pressure, that a runoff was "legitimate, legal and according to the constitution of Afghanistan."

The Afghan leader did not express any regret over fraud that led U.N.-backed auditors to strip him of nearly a third of his votes.

"This is not the right time to discuss investigations, this is the time to move forward toward stability and national unity," Karzai said at a joint appearance with U.S. and U.N. go-betweens.

The Obama administration has kept an obvious distance from Karzai, a silver-tongued charmer whom the Bush administration had considered a successful protege despite mounting claims of incompetence and corruption.

Kerry leaned hard on Karzai over several days to concede that he did not win in the first round. The two men took a long, dramatic walk Tuesday before an uncharact! eristica lly grim Karzai came to the microphones.

Kerry spoke to The Associated Press en route home from Kabul on Tuesday and said Karzai had worried aloud about the direction of his relationship with the United States.

"He came to the conclusion that Afghanistan's interests and his interests coincided in making sure there was a legitimately accepted government and that he needed to take this step in order to restore that," Kerry said.

Although Karzai was favored to win all along, Obama's advisers thought they could forge a workable partnership that would be the building block for a new war strategy emphasizing the security and welfare of ordinary Afghans.

The strategy, which military officials quickly assumed would mean an infusion of thousands of additional U.S. troops and a larger expansion of Afghanistan's own armed forces, frayed when the expensive, carefully monitored election went bad.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sounded pessimistic when asked about the runoff at a Tokyo news conference Wednesday.

"I think we need to be realistic that the issues of corruption and governance that we are trying to work with the Afghan government on are not going to be solved simply on the outcome of the presidential election," he said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama has not decided whether to move ahead with a revamped strategy, and the prospect of more troops, before results of the runoff are known. Gibbs told reporters he still expects that decision within weeks.

The Taliban will surely try to disrupt the voting again, and turnout is expected to be low in areas where voters were intimidated.

"Another election where there's no credible government to operate with continues to undermine our reason for being there," said Richard "Ozzie" Nelson, a former White House countert! errorism expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It would push us further down the slippery slope of what to do next."

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Associated Press writer Andrew Miga contributed to this report.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Anne Gearan has covered U.S. national security issues for The Associated Press since 2004.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Treasury Department on Thursday ordered seven companies that accustomed billions of dollars in government bailouts to bisect total advantage for their top executives. But the big reductions will not apply to pay becoming before November.

Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury official arch the pay review, told reporters that boilerplate salaries for the top 25 admiral are being cut 90 percent starting next month.

The action will apply to the top admiral at Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve unveiled a proposal Thursday that would police banks' pay behavior to ensure they don't animate advisers to take reckless gambles like those that contributed to the banking crisis.

Unlike the Treasury plan, the Fed proposal would awning bags of banks, including abounding that never accustomed a bailout. But the central coffer would not absolutely set compensation. Instead, the Fed would review - and could veto - pay behavior that could cause too abundant risk-taking by executives, traders or accommodation officers.

The government did not appetite to make admiral return advantage already accustomed this year, but the bargain pay levels will be the base for making decisions on salary in 2010, Feinberg said.

The admiral will still be subject to advantage limits as long as their companies are accepting abutment from the government's $700 billion bailout fund. Their total advantage was being cut in half, on average.

Cash salaries will be limited to $500,000 for added than 90 percent of affe! cted emp loyees. Personal costs for such allowances as aggregation autos and corporate jets will be capped at $25,000 without approval from Feinberg's office for college payments.

Feinberg got the job as pay czar earlier this year when Congress, responding to outrage about huge bonuses being paid to AIG, adapted the bailout law to crave that controlling advantage at companies accepting exceptional abetment be curbed.

He has been reviewing advantage bales since August and called abounding of the negotiations "intense."

Speaking earlier at the White House, President Barack Obama welcomed Treasury's decision and said Americans' ethics are offended by boundless paychecks for admiral whose companies were bailed out by taxpayers. He urged Congress to pass legislation to accord shareholders a articulation in controlling pay packages.

"It does affront our ethics when admiral of big banking firms that are struggling pay themselves huge bonuses alike as they await on extraordinary abetment to stay afloat," Obama said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner additionally praised the outcome of Feinberg's deliberations.

"We gave him the difficult task of cutting boundless pay, striking a balance between advantage and accident taking and keeping able management teams in place to help the economies recover - all in the public interest," Geithner said in a statement.

Smaller companies and those that accept repaid the bailout money, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are not affected by the plan.

GM said in a statement that it will adopt the advantage changes categorical by Feinberg by alive its pay bales toward non-cash advantage that is tied to aggregation performance.

"Along with restoring GM to profitability, a key antecedence is responsible stewardship of the public ad! vance in our aggregation and accelerated claim of that investment," the automaker said.

Bank of America beneath to comment on Feinberg's plans, but a spokesman said the aggregation was not worried about top admiral leaving. "We're a able aggregation with a highly aggressive platform and we believe people appetite to assignment here," said Scott Silvestri.

Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne and other Fiat admiral who assignment for both Chrysler and Fiat were exempted from the pay cuts as part of the agreement with the U.S. government for Fiat to take over management control of Chrysler and get a 20 percent pale in the company.

Executives who assignment solely for Chrysler could be affected, but abounding of the top earners under Chrysler's above owner accept left the aggregation including above CEO Robert Nardelli and above Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda. Deputy CEO Jim Press additionally is about to leave the company.

Under the Fed proposal, the 28 better banks would develop their own affairs to make sure advantage doesn't spur disproportionate accident taking. If the Fed approves, the plan would be adopted and coffer admiral would adviser compliance.

At smaller banks - area advantage is about less - Fed admiral will conduct reviews. Those banks don't accept to abide plans.

The Fed refused to analyze the 28 banks that will accept to abide plans. But Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo & Co. are usually included on such lists. Nearly 6,000 banks regulated by the Fed would be covered.

"The Federal Reserve is working to ensure that advantage bales appropriately tie rewards to longer-term achievement and do not create disproportionate accident for the firm or the banking system," said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In the AIG trading division, the arm of the aggregation whose risky trades caused its dow! nfall, n o top controlling will receive added than $200,000 in total advantage for 2009. However, the affair of $198 actor in bonuses that are to be paid to advisers of the trading unit in 2010 still must be determined. The government has said it will push to see those bonuses reduced.

The giant insurance aggregation has accustomed taxpayer abetment valued at added than $180 billion. AIG assembly beneath to comment Thursday.

The pay restrictions for all seven companies will crave any controlling gluttonous added than $25,000 in appropriate allowances - things such as country club memberships, clandestine planes and aggregation cars - to get permission for those allowances from the government.

Feinberg's decisions appear days after administration officials voiced aciculate criticism of affairs by some firms, particularly those on Wall Street, to pay huge bonuses alike as the country continues to struggle with rising unemployment and the effects of the recession.

Goldman Sachs, which has paid back its bailout money, has said it appropriate $16.7 billion for advantage so far this year, added than $500,000 per employee. Citigroup is advantageous $5.3 billion in bonuses to its advisers and Bank of America $3.3 billion.

Elsewhere, Freddie Mac is giving its chief banking officer advantage account as abundant as $5.5 million, including a $2 actor signing bonus. The government-controlled mortgage finance aggregation doesn't accept to follow the controlling advantage rules because it is being paid outside the TARP.

Congress passed legislation in February acute Treasury to oversee pay at companies that took bailout money. Treasury created the pay czar's office in June as one agency of implementing that law.

Treasury's rules crave the appropriate master to review pay for the 25 top earners at companies that accustomed "exceptional assistance," ex! amining overall pay structures and recapturing payouts that go adjoin taxpayers' interests.

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Associated Press Writers Jeannine Aversa, Ken Thomas, Jim Kuhnhenn and Marcy Gordon in Washington, Ieva M. Augstums in Charlotte, N.C., and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States built pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday, signaling that a troop increase could articulation on a successful runoff acclamation and that the Obama administering would be receptive to a power-sharing accord amid Karzai and his chief rival.

A affiliation government or added political arrangement that included Karzai's rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, could accommodate a critical internal check on Karzai, who is broadly advantaged to win the presidential runoff set for Nov. 7.

President Barack Obama and Sen. John Kerry, who pressed the administration's interests in weekend talks with Karzai in Kabul, both hinted Wednesday that pending deliberations on accessible U.S. troop increases in Afghanistan could be affected by the Afghan leader's behavior.

Karzai's weak and corruption-riddled government has been blamed in part for the resurgence of the Taliban and for widespread Afghan civilian disillusionment. The Afghan national acclamation in August was bedridden by massive fraud that led to the auctioning of a third of the results, providing a block for the U.S. to columnist Karzai to accede to the runoff with Abdullah.

Kerry, whose meetings with Karzai helped advance to the runoff agreement over the weekend, said Wednesday afterwards a White House session with Obama that the president should wait until afterwards new acclamation to make his accommodation on troop strength.

Obama himself said Wednesday in a television account he might not announce his accommodation on sending added troops until afterwards the runoff.

Both statements had the subtle force of accretion pre! ssure on Karzai by implying that the administration's accommodation on U.S. troop backbone in Afghanistan might depend on how the runoff turns out.

The Massachusetts Democrat said Wednesday that it wasn't "common sense" for Obama to determine whether added U.S. troops should go to Afghanistan afterwards knowing the acclamation results. "You really appetite to apperceive that this has worked, and you appetite to apperceive what's coming out of it," Kerry said.

Officials said Obama's pending accommodation had acutely figured in the U.S. discussions with Karzai about how to resolve the political impasse.

Several admiral stressed that the looming troop plan accommodation was not used candidly to force Karzai to concede on the election's contested first round, but one highly placed U.S. official in Afghanistan said the United States used Obama's deliberation over troop numbers as leverage.

That official spoke on action of anonymity because Obama has not appear whether he will accede to a U.S. military request for bags of additional forces.

Karzai and Abdullah settled on the runoff following weeks of acrimony over Afghanistan's fraud-pocked national election. But both sides additionally are considering a affiliation government that could either replace the runoff or follow it.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. would not be opposed to a power-sharing deal, depending on its legitimacy and how it was implemented. Obama appeared to allude to the still-fluid discussions Wednesday.

"I think we're still in - finding out how this accomplished action in Afghanistan is activity to unfold," Obama said in an account on MSNBC.

While careful to say that any power-sharing accord would have to appear from the Afghans and not the U.S., American admiral were clear that Karzai's afraid accep! tance of a runoff vote may not be abundant by itself.

Karzai and Abdullah have about dismissed the abstraction of sharing power, but there have been reports of private horse-trading discussions afore and since Tuesday's announcement of the runoff.

Kerry told reporters afterwards affair with Obama on Wednesday that in Afghanistan he "did not altercate nor did I even attempt to put on the table the abstraction of a coalition."

It would be inappropriate to raise that possibility and would make it seem to Afghans that the United States was calling the shots, Kerry said. However, he accustomed the issue was being discussed in Kabul, and said there may have been talks amid the Karzai and Abdullah camps on it "even today."

In an account Wednesday with The Associated Press, Kerry said the discussions with Karzai grew intense at times.

"I turned up the dial a few times, accept me," Kerry said.

He added: "They were actual emotional. And they were actual amorous and actual heated at times but accurately heated. You apperceive there was never anger, there was always the intensity of the argument."

Another State Department official said Abdullah's camp had bidding absorption in a affiliation or power-sharing deal, and that some Karzai aides, concerned about the after-effects of a runoff, are accommodating to accede the abstraction admitting the president's public repudiation of the idea.

That official said the U.S. would support any advance that leads to the formation of a credible government in the eyes of the Afghan people. The official spoke on action of anonymity because the negotiations don't involve the U.S.

That could include a affiliation or added power-sharing arrangement that is either formed to annihilate the need for a second annular or one that is created using the after-effects of ! the runo ff.

But there are no accoutrement for a affiliation in the Afghan Constitution, and it is not clear how such a accord would work or remain enforceable.

The most important near-term goal for the U.S. was Karzai's acceptance of acclamation agency after-effects and his acceptance that the impasse must be resolved.

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven, Laurie Kellman, Ron Fournier and Julie Pace in Washington and Robert H. Reid in Kabul contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Tuesday acclaimed Afghan President Hamid Karzai for accepting acclamation artifice findings that invalidated nearly a third of the votes cast for him in August.

Obama said the breakthrough offers new achievement that a credible Kabul government will appear to accomplice with the U.S. and NATO in battling a resurgent Taliban insurgency and blocking al-Qaida's return.

Obama told reporters that he batten by buzz with the Afghan admiral after Karzai bowed to U.S. burden and appear that he agreed to a runoff acclamation Nov. 7, acknowledging that he fell abbreviate of a majority in the first balloting.

The aboriginal vote count had put Karzai well aloft the 50 percent mark he needed to be declared the outright winner, but a U.N.-based analysis bent that hundreds of bags of his votes were tainted. Until Tuesday it was unclear whether Karzai would acquire the findings and accede to a runoff.

"President Karzai and the other candidates have shown that they have the interests of the Afghan bodies at heart," Obama said. "This is a reflection of a charge to the aphorism of law and the insistence that the Afghan people's will should be done."

In his animadversion at the White House, Obama accepted the work of U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who was joined in talks in Kabul over the weekend by Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who active the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obama additionally acknowledged the work of American troops angry in Afghanistan.

In an Associated Press blast account from Dubai, Kerry said Tuesday that Karzai had acquainted acutely afflicted by the burden put on him to acqui! re a run off and the implication of Afghan incompetence.

"President Karzai really acutely believes he had won the acclamation and he acquainted the action was awry and he acquainted that the all-embracing association was kind of conspiring to push for a different outcome," Kerry said.

"He acquainted very acutely about the flaws of the process. He had bodies within his government, bodies within the acclamation agency who acquainted they were actuality angered about putting together a adulterated acclamation process. There were a lot of very deep feelings about Afghanistan's right to run its election, its adequacy in running it and so forth."

Obama put a positive circuit on Karzai's decision.

"President Karzai's effective actions established an important antecedent for Afghanistan's new democracy," Obama said in a account issued beforehand Tuesday. "The Afghan constitution and laws are strengthened by President Karzai's decision, which is in the best interests of the Afghan people."

In reviewing its action for the war in Afghanistan - including contemplation of sending tens of bags added U.S. troops next year - the White House has about questioned whether the Afghan government is too corrupt to serve as a worthwhile accomplice in the action adjoin a Taliban insurgency.

Administration admiral on Tuesday appeared to signal that Karzai had taken a footfall in the right direction.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed Karzai's advertisement as a addition for Afghan democracy. She fabricated no absolute mention of the fraudulent Karzai votes that were befuddled out, although she referred to "a asperous and contentious" acclamation and weeks of "debate over the flaws in the vote."

"We abide committed to partnering with the Afghan bodies and their government on our shared objectives of deepening good gove! rnance, arrest corruption, accretion economic opportunities and improving aegis for all Afghans," she said in a accounting statement.

Obama charcoal beneath burden from some Republicans to complete his action review and adjudge on troop levels.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a arch apostle of bolstering U.S. troop levels, said Tuesday he was admiring by Karzai's decision and argued that bigger aegis is the key to architecture a credible Kabul government.

"It is unrealistic to apprehend Afghan governance to improve significantly without bigger security," McCain said. "That is why it is essential to implement the properly resourced counterinsurgency action that Gen. Stanley McChrystal and our senior commanders have alleged for, and that is why I abide to urge President Obama to provide our aggressive and noncombatant leaders in Afghanistan with the assets they charge as quickly as possible."

The White House said Obama additionally alleged Eikenberry to thank him for his collaborative work with Kerry and to get an amend on the acclamation situation. Obama additionally alleged Abdullah Abdullah, the above Afghan foreign minister who came in second in the August vote and will face off adjoin Karzai on Nov. 7.

Eikenberry and Kerry had been acutely engaged with Karzai and other Afghan government admiral over the accomplished several days, apparently succeeding in persuading Karzai that he must acquire the artifice probe results.

Kerry, who had met with Karzai at atomic four times afore the announcement, was at the Afghan president's ancillary back the advertisement was fabricated in Kabul.

In interviews over the weekend from Kabul, Kerry said the acclamation action had to be acclimatized afore the Obama administration could make a articular decision about whether to send additional troops and to accomplish other assets to stabilizing Afghanista! n.

< class="ap-story-p">Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, said the Obama administration needs to adjudge on a war action and not "sit on our hands" waiting for acclamation after-effects and a government to appear in Kabul. In animadversion to reporters traveling with him to Asia, the Pentagon arch said Obama will have to make his decisions in the ambience of "evolving" issues.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said it has not been bent whether Obama will wait to advertise an Afghan action until after the after-effects of the runoff. Gibbs told reporters he still expects that advertisement to be fabricated in "the advancing weeks."

Regardless of the election's outcome, Gibbs said, "We've got to make sure we're making advance with a accomplice in that government." He additionally said the next U.S. action affair on Afghanistan may be pushed back until early next anniversary because Gates and Vice President Joe Biden are traveling abroad.

Obama was widely accepted to adjudge on the next steps in Afghanistan afore he begins an extended cruise to Asia next month.

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Associated Press writers Andrew Miga, Steven Hurst, Lara Jakes and Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The leader who prods his critics to put politics aside is doing anything but these days: President Barack Obama is campaigning for his party's future.

Barreling Tuesday into several days of frenetic political activity, Obama The Campaigner has work to do in helping raise money and rally loyalists for lesser-known Democrats.

Dollars aren't materializing as much as expected - even with a record-shattering fundraiser like Obama at the party's helm and working furiously to bring in cash. And, two weeks before off-year elections, Democrats are facing the prospect of losing hard-fought gubernatorial races in Virginia and perhaps New Jersey, contests that depend on the Democratic base and that to a certain degree are shaping up as a test of Obama's political strength.

All that's a wake-up call for a party that controls both the White House and Congress and for a president elected in an electoral landslide less than a year ago.

So, as the Democratic standard-bearer, Obama is putting his time on the line and his prestige to the test with a blitz of fundraisers and campaign appearances.

He is asking donors not just for money, but also a burst of campaign energy to help him get his enormous domestic agenda passed, particularly health care reform. He does knowing it is harder to get people jazzed up to lobby Congress than to win an groundbreaking election.

"It now falls to us," Obama told donors at a $30,000-per-couple fundraiser on Tuesday. "I hope that everybody here is willing to recapture that sense of excitement that comes from a big but achievable challenge, not a superficial excitement that comes from election day, but an exciteme! nt that comes from knowing we took on something that had to be taken on."

Obama stood to raise as much as $3 million in New York for the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday as well as an unspecified sum for Bill Owens, the Democrat in a special congressional election in upstate New York. He paired an official White House event - a visit to a joint terrorism task force center - with the fundraising trip, meaning a reduced cost of presidential travel for the campaigns while taxpayers pick up the rest of the tab.

In the coming days, the president also will campaign for Democrats in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Florida, a notable cashing-in of Obama's time as he fights to pass health care reform and tries to find a winning Afghanistan strategy.

It's not just this year's races that are at issue but also the broader state of the Democratic Party - from cash-flow to enthusiasm - heading into next year. In the 2010 elections, Democrats will try to defend their majorities in Congress and seek to pick up governor's seats.

The party in power typically loses congressional seats in the first election of a president's term. Obama certainly wants to avoid the fate of Bill Clinton, who similarly swept into office with youthful energy only to see his party lose control of Congress two years later.

With all that at stake, Obama is choosing to insert himself intensely into the process while keeping in mind that he also could be associated with defeats should Democrats lose.

Including Tuesday's events, Obama will have headlined 23 fundraisers so far in his nine-month presidency, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a detailed log of presidential activities. This compares with six for President George W. Bush's first year in office, though his efforts were cut short because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Obama! is calc ulating that he can't afford criticism from the Democratic Party's base supporters that he's not helping candidates. But there are also risks to full-throttle campaigning: His own power is being gauged.

"If governors and members of the House and Senate come to the conclusion that Obama's personal support is not transferrable or that his supporters have not remained mobilized, the impact of his personal charisma will be seen as more limited than it was a year ago," said Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College in New York.

"All in all, he gets more credit for making a public effort than for sitting on the sidelines and watching Democrats at risk fend for themselves," Sherrill said.

Overall, Democrats aren't in terrible financial shape.

Through September, the committee that works to elect Senate Democrats brought in $33 million compared with $29 million for its GOP counterparts, and the committee that works to elect House Democrats has raised $44 million compared with $27 million for the countering Republican effort. Also the Democratic and Republican committees that work to elect governors were almost even in fundraising during the first half of this year.

But Democrats certainly aren't seeing the jaw-dropping sums of the 2008 presidential campaign year. And some Republican candidates are out-raising Democratic opponents in the money hunt in key 2010 races.

In Illinois, Republican Mark Kirk out-raised Democrat Alex Giannoulias last quarter and is keeping pace overall in the race for Obama's old Senate seat. In two states where Democrats hope to pick up Senate seats open because of Republican retirements, Republicans Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio vastly outraised Democrat Kendrick Meek in Florida in the past quarter, and Republican Rob Portman is swamping Democrat Lee Fisher both this past quarter and overall.

In the House, several dozen Republican challengers in Democratic-held districts have raised more than $100,000 through September, an increase from June when that was true of just over a dozen such GOP candidates. And as of June, the Republican governors had $20 million cash on hand, compared with only $12 million for Democratic governors.

Also causing concern for Democrats: The DNC hasn't raised as much as party operatives thought it would and the Republican National Committee under Chairman Michael Steele has exceeded Democratic expectations. The DNC has raised nearly $55 million, including $8.2 million last month, through September, compared with $59 million, including $8.7 million last month, for the RNC.

Democrats are being hampered by a host of factors, including the recession.

Obama also extended his ban on money from political action committees and lobbyists to the DNC, deep-pocketed Wall Street donors aren't ponying up as much as expected, and grass-roots supporters who were the bedrock of last year's campaign aren't as energized as they were when there was a clear objective - taking the White House from Republicans by electing Obama.

"It's hard to raise money if you're in power. The ideological giver or party giver may be thinking, 'Didn't we just win this election?'" said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University government professor who has studied giving to parties and candidates. "Also, Bush is gone, and a lot of the Democrats were motivated by anti-Bush feelings in previous cycles."

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Sidoti reported from Washington.

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PURCELLVILLE, Va. (AP) -- Just a year afterwards this ancient Confederate state helped elect a black man president, Democrats are desperately aggravating to hang onto the governorship.

A lot has changed: Loyal Democrats are added chastened than aftermost fall. Republicans are energized. Independents are proving to be ... independent. Voters of all kinds seem disenchanted.

Just like Americans nationwide.

The challenge between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds provides a snapshot of sorts - 12 months afterwards America adopted Barack Obama as admiral and advertisement Democratic majorities in Congress, and one year afore midterm elections in every state.

And the picture, in Virginia as in the nation, is not pretty for Democrats.

Republicans are far added accursed up than Democrats, and independents who leaned larboard just a year ago are tilting away. Frustration over the status quo, fear of the country's direction, and disillusionment about political leaders span the ideological spectrum.

"I'm disgusted by everything. We couldn't be at a worse abode in this country," said Maria Taylor, a waitress in Purcellville's baby business district. She calls herself an absolute and hasn't absitively whom to abutment as Virginia's abutting governor.

At the adjacent hardware store, adolescent undecided aborigine Cary Koppie, a one-man mowing company, is so affronted he says he may sit out this election. "They're all a agglomeration of liars," he said. "You don't apperceive who the heck to vote for anymore."

Two weeks afore the Nov. 3 election, polls show McDonnell, a above stat! e attorn ey general, leading Deeds, a above state legislator, by about bifold digits. After two terms of Democrats at the helm, voters may afresh be appetite change. Every four years since 1997, Virginia has called the applicant of the opposite affair from the one that controls the White House.

Prospects arise better for Democrats in New Jersey, area embattled Gov. Jon Corzine is in a close race with Republican Chris Christie in this year's added governor's race. Corzine is favored to win; it's a Democratic-leaning state and absolute Chris Daggett is sucking abutment from both parties.

Obama will be campaigning for Corzine on Wednesday and has stops lined up for Deeds, too, afore Election Day.

The outcomes won't adumbrate abutting year's midterm results. So much could change. Jobs could return. Health care overhaul could pass. War in Afghanistan could be winding down. People could feel better about area the country is heading.

But given Virginia's newfound swing-voting behavior, the McDonnell-Deeds outcome will be a key admeasurement of how America feels and, perhaps added importantly, how absolute voters are acting ahead of the 2010 elections. Independents will be analytical as Democrats try to protect their majorities in Congress and pick up governorships in a number of states.

Here in Virginia, as well as in the wider U.S., Republican crossover voters and independents are breaking from the Democrats, partly because they're put off by Obama's government expansion and expensive policy proposals like bloom care. The question in Virginia is how they'll split between McDonnell and Deeds - if they turn out at all.

"Neither one of them makes me particularly excited," said Dale Thompson, a gun-shop buyer who shuns affair labels and thinks "society's a mess." Still, he's acknowledging McDonnell - "the least angry of the bunch."

Down the str! eet, toy -store buyer Bill Lupinacci, 51, a Republican who backed Democrat Tim Kaine for governor in 2006 and Obama in 2008, is undecided - and turned off by both the candidates for the state's top office. "They're spending best of their time on attack ads rather than putting forth their positions on the issues."

McDonnell has been forced to defend his graduate academy apriorism from 20 years ago that criticized career women, gays and cohabiting bachelor couples. Deeds has drawn criticism for afresh refusing to specify how he would raise the $1 billion a year bare to revive analytical transportation projects.

The race additionally is an important test of whether the droves of base Democratic voters - the blacks, Hispanics, bachelor women, young bodies and first-time voters whom Obama admiring aftermost abatement - will turn out and abutment a Democrat if the admiral is not on the ballot.

Some are certain not to cast votes this abatement because only the best motivated bodies turn out in off-year elections.

There additionally are break that some Virginians who made up the president's diverse winning coalition were enthusiastic Obama 2008 voters, not reliable Democratic Party voters, and perhaps not alike Obama 2012 voters, should he run for re-election as expected. That would mean they would be up for grabs come 2010.

Consider Jake Crocker, a self-employed marketing adviser who owns Richmond's Easy Street cafe. He backed Obama and said he'd gladly do so again. But he's voting for Republican McDonnell because he sees similarities to pro-business Democrat Mark Warner, the above governor and now senator. "He's a guy who gets it," Crocker said of McDonnell.

Conversely, Eddie DuRant, an environmental adviser in Virginia Beach who supported Obama a year ago, afresh absitively to vote for Deeds. DuRant was swayed by McDonnell's graduate thesis, saying, "It appears he ! has an u ltraconservative amusing agenda that is not in band with what I believe."

Places like Purcellville in Loudoun County, a sprawling swath to the west of Washington, could provide clues to aborigine attitudes in added swing-voting places in battlefield states: Arapahoe County in suburban Denver, Anoka County abreast Minneapolis-St. Paul, Westmoreland County abreast Pittsburgh, Jefferson County abreast St. Louis.

Around here, farmland, country manors and a bevy of loyal GOP voters have given way to shopping centers, subdivisions and a mishmash of Republicans, Democrats and independents in recent years. Loudoun County's accelerated advance has changed its politics; the area has become a analytical front in statewide elections.

Long a reliably Republican bastion, this is area Democrats aboriginal felt the start of a national political sea change in 2005. Their gubernatorial candidate, Kaine, won the county and the race. It accepted to be a harbinger for 2006 when Democrats, fueled by huge assets in counties like Loudoun, won one Virginia Senate seat, and 2008, when they claimed the second while voting for a Democratic presidential applicant for the aboriginal time since 1964.

This county and others adjacent are expected to advance either McDonnell or Deeds over the top - and accord important clues about the country's aggregate state of mind.

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Bob Lewis reported from Richmond.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn added about our Privacy Policy.