With the national unemployment rate elevated and stalled at 9.7%, much higher in some places, and grumbling growing about the unstimulating stimulus spending bill with the $787-billion price tag, Organizing for America is doing its part:

It's hiring people.

The hangover organization of the perpetual Obama presidential campaign is now a well-organized wing of the Democratic National Committee. And it would like to organize even more than it already has organized during the campaigner-in-chief's first 15-plus months of campaigning for 2012.

If you thought all those "grass-roots" watch parties, support groups, e-mail and telephone campaigns were amply abundant in the effort to convince his own majority congressional Democrats to vote for the White House Democrat's healthcare bill, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The president spent another two days this week out of the Oval Office campaigning in person in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. Also eating a cheeseburger.

Meanwhile, there's financial reform to push and immigration reform maybe and climate change and next year, new taxes. And, who knows, perhaps even a 2012 presidential re-bid, do you think?

And most important right now, of course, there are the midterm elections on Nov. 2, which at the moment look a little gloomy for incumbent Democrats who went along on healthcare at the urging of the president, who isn't facing any voters this year. So maybe a few gajillion more e-mails will change the political tide.

Here's the OFA pitch: "Email campaigners are responsible for planning, writing, and executing grassroots campaigns to advance the President's agenda for change. Campaigns will primarily be driven through email and web tools and use fundraising, citizen advocacy, and local organizing to achieve our goals."

Here's what they want: "Excellent writing and editing skills with strong attention to detail...strong organizing and campaigning instincts; you can craft messages that move people to act and you know what actions will achieve the right impact at the right time...familiarity with HTML and/or online organizing platforms...ready to work hard; this isn’t a 9-5 sort of job."

Also you must be "passionate about engaging millions of Americans in advancing President Obama's agenda and changing the country."

The bad news: There is no mention of actual pay, as in money to live on. Also, although it's supposedly all online work, you must be willing to relocate to Washington because, well, that's the place whose harsh political tone Obama promised to change.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Organizing for America

We just got our own personal effing e-mail from Joe "You Know, I Was a Senator Too Once" Biden. He needs a favor.

Somehow we suspect a few million other persons received this special missive distributed by Organizing for America, the vast non-campaign arm of the Obama administration's never-ending 2008 campaign.

According to Joe (we call him that because he calls us by our first name so we must be friends), "Two weeks after it was signed into law, health insurance reform is still the talk of the town."

He's got that right. In fact, it's the talk of the country.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, 54% of the nation's likely voters like the Obama-Biden-Pelosi-Reid healthcare legislation so much that they'd actually like to have it repealed. Eight-out-of-10 Republicans feel that way and 57% of independents.

(UPDATE: Monday, 1:44 p.m. A new survey finds the number favoring repeal of Obama's healthcare bill has jumped to 58%, including 50% who Strongly Favor repeal.)

Fifty-two percent think the intensely-fought-over Democratic law is bad for the....

No hyperbole, he really was the margin of victory. He paid a personal price, now a political one.

Bart Stupak, the 57-year-old Michigan Democrat whose antiabortion stance put him at the center of the fevered and partisan debate over healthcare reform, announced today that he's leaving the congressional arena.

In a way he was the poster child for partisan anger, hit by death threats and abusive calls for his views on abortion. (See video below.)

When the measure first came before the House last fall, Stupak authored an amendment explicitly banning any use of federal funds for abortion. Liberal groups were livid, calling it "a direct attack on women's right to make private healthcare decisions."

Then, as the House considered the Senate version of the measure last month, pressure mounted and....

Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank traces the hyper-partisan atmosphere of the nation today to -- wait for it -- the rise of Republican partisan Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1994. 

Gingrich was a driving force behind that year's so-called Republican Revolution that seized control of both houses of Congress with the "Contract With America" after the first two years of Bill Clinton's first term.

Some Republicans hope for a repeat of that experience in this November's first midterm elections for the Barack Obama administration. Gingrich, of course, has been gone since 1998, although he rallied Republicans meeting in New Orleans on Thursday evening, as The Ticket reported right here.

In this video excerpt from NBC's "Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Frank also blames the news media for only covering news that's bad, as opposed to news that's good.

And the House veteran admits that back in the angry Vietnam War protest days, the left was partisan and even violent but claims it did not have mainstream media cheering them on, as he says, is happening today. Take a listen. See if it makes you angry or partisan.

-- Andrew Malcolm

 
At the White House, the signing ceremony looked like a victory party as President Obama delivered on the signature promise of his campaign for change. As he signed the historic healthcare bill, Obama was flanked by Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Edward Kennedy, who had called this the cause of his lifetime, and by ordinary Americans who wrote to him or campaigned with him on the issue.

But the long, torturous slog through Congress left the field littered with wounded.

Now, some vultures are circling for the kill.

On the left, unions are furious with Democrats who enjoy labor backing and still voted against the bill. Of the 34 Democrats who voted against the bill, more than half a dozen have enjoyed strong labor support. Now, unions are recruiting third-party candidates to run against Democrats Mike Arcuri and Mike McMahon in New York and looking at other possible contests against New Jersey's John Adler, Illinois' Dan Lipinski, Massachusetts' Stephen Lynch and Ohio's Zack Space.

"Everyone who voted against passing health insurance reform ... will have to explain to voters why they stood up with the insurance industry," said Service Employees International Union spokeswoman Lori Lodes.

On the right, tea party activists are rallying conservatives for a repeal drive against "the socialist healthcare vote." And they are gearing up for November -- registering new voters, launching political action committees, running attack ads against Democratic incumbents who said yes to change.

"They chose not to listen to what the people want," said Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party. "We, the people, will have our say in November." Gina Loudon, a founder of the St. Louis Tea Party, added that she has been deluged with calls from folks who wanted to get involved. "This has absolutely awoken a giant," she said.

High on the target list for many conservatives is Michigan's Bart Stupak, who provided the winning margin of victory with his band of antiabortion colleagues who settled for an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be used for abortion.

Conservatives may have the easier hand. They will be lobbing money and muscle against a candidate while backing an opponent. For liberals, the challenge is to oppose fellow Democrats while finding third-party alternatives.

Mindful of the terrible price paid by others who did support the bill at great political risk, they are planning rallies for "yes"-voting lawmakers whose districts voted for Republican John McCain. "First thing we want to do is take the time to thank those who took the tough vote," the AFL-CIO's Karen Ackerman told the Hill. "This is not a one-time appreciation rally. We will let them know that we stand with them."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: President Obama signs the healthcare reform bill on March 23, 2010, with Marcelas Owens of Seattle (foreground left), Vice President Biden, Vicki Kennedy (just to the right of Biden), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (in brown) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (to right of Pelosi). Credit: Associated Press

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House Majority Whip James Clyburn pronounced Democratic leaders "absolutely giddy." The Congressional Budget Office  released its "score" of how much President Obama's healthcare bill would cost and the news contained several nuggets of promise for Democrats.

First, the cost tag was less than the $1 trillion they had feared, robbing Republicans of a sound-bite criticism.

Second, Democrats say the CBO projects the bill would cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next two decades, giving Democrats plenty of talking points on the campaign trail. Already, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is pitching healthcare reform as the biggest deficit reducing opportunity on which any lawmaker will ever have the opportunity to vote.

And finally, the estimate allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to unveil the bill Thursday -- starting a 72-hour clock toward a vote at high noon Sunday, part of the Democrats effort at transparency.

"They say a picture is worth 1,000 words," Pelosi said. "A number is worth a lot too. I love numbers."

You could see the joy in her face. These numbers are manna for her maneuvering to get the last few votes, reportedly five, that she needs in the House. As Republicans threaten to derail the process in every way they can, Obama is also engaged, hoping to provide the tipping point. As the showdown nears, individual lawmakers can expect to feel the heat.

And the 40 House members who voted for a stringent anti-abortion amendment last fall will be lobbied hard to swallow the Senate version, which is not as explicit in banning federal funding. The controversy is roiling passions, pitting Catholic bishops, who are urging a no vote, against Catholic nuns, who think it should pass.

Michigan's Bart Stupak knows first-hand the animosity stirred by the issue. The author of the House amendment banning federal funding, Stupak said recently he has been assaulted by angry voters, most of them not even constituents. He calls it "a living hell."

"You get cussed out wherever you go," he said, noting his staff was overwhelmed by more than 1,500 faxes and e-mails, most from outside his district. “All the phones are unplugged at our house," he told The Hill, adding that his wife is "tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won’t watch TV." Noting that some voters have threatened to spit on him, Stupak wondered if public civility would ever return.

Maybe, but probably not this week.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), left, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Democratic Rep. George Miller during a press conference Nov. 7, 2009 after the House passed healthcare reform. Credit: Associated Press 

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Ever since 1917, when Montana Republican Jeanette Rankin came to Congress, the number of women on Capitol Hill has been growing. These days, 78 women serve as members of Congress -- an all-time high. All but 17 of them are Democrats.

One of them is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A product of San Francisco's special brand of politics -- polite but with elbows -- she has shown a brilliant affinity for counting votes. In Washington parlance, it's called "whipping," as in whipping recalcitrant votes into line.

No issue has tested her as much as the current battle over President Obama's healthcare reform -- a thicket of progressive moral passion and fierce corporate lobbying, topped by a wave of tea-party anger. It will define them both -- and could end their hold on power.

So Pelosi on Wednesday is calling the Democratic women of the 111th Congress to her office, presumably to talk up the gender discrimination in the healthcare system and to call for gender solidarity to end it. Also, of course, to lobby the wavering.

On abortion, Ohio's Marcy Kaptur  may be a prime target. The Toledo Democrat voted for the healthcare bill in November when it contained an amendment banning use of federal funds for abortion. But now, without that language, her vote is in the "maybe" column.

On immigration, New York's Nydia Velázquez, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has already been in talks with Pelosi about how to provide for humane medical treatment of illegal immigrants.

In the balance is not just a reformed healthcare system, but an issue for both Democrats and Republicans in the fall. Will the girls network -- unthinkable a century ago -- make the difference?

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Jeanette Rankin speaking on the House floor. Credit: House of Representatives

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They were a major power when the healthcare bill first came up on the House floor, forcing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak's amendment explicitly banning use of public funds for abortions, a move that provoked real anger from her liberal base.

Now, Catholic bishops are working to torpedo the healthcare reform effort, providing the tipping point against historic reform, with all the implications that has for President Obama's presidency and Democrats' chances of holding the House.

Archbishop Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement noting the Catholic Church's long track record of providing and advocating for more equitable healthcare. But he urged lawmakers to defeat it, saying that, "regrettably," because the Senate bill does not contain a firewall against abortion as the House bill did, "the cost is too high; the loss is too great."

The bishops do not speak for all Catholics -- Pelosi herself being the prime example. But the drumroll of opposition from anti-abortion groups -- including Americans United for Life, which is running a $350,000 ad campaign aimed at eight Democratic lawmakers who supported Stupak's amendment -- may be one reason the speaker has gone to a new tactic -- the "deem to pass" option. [Updated at 10:55 a.m.: Under that still-being-negotiated scenario, the House would not have to vote directly on the Senate bill, only acknowledge it as part of a rule that allows lawmakers to consider the new Senate version.]

Commentators have gone ballistic over the play. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham has likened the Democratic drive toward healthcare passage to a World War II-era Japanese Kamikaze mission. "Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and, you know, they're making a suicide run here," he said during a call Monday to the Keven Cohen Show on WVOC radio in Columbia, S.C.

But the move is not unprecedented. Brookings Institution's Thomas Mann notes that a similar strategy was used to enact a smoking ban on domestic air flights.

And by November, the manner of passage may seem less important than the achievement. After all, the public already suspects Congress of shenanigans. This is process, not substance, the stuff of sausage-making that defines the art of legislating.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) attends a Capitol Hill healthcare rally sponsored by pediatric physicians and MomsRising.org on Monday. Credit: Getty Images

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In 2008, those who care about immigrants voted for change, hoping to end the plight of an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants who live in the shadows. For nearly 18 months, Democrats put them off, insisting that other issues -- healthcare, financial regulatory reform, climate change -- trumped theirs.

Now immigrants and their advocates are stepping up pressure, planning a march on Washington for March 21 and lobbying lawmakers to take action.

"People are suffering. Millions and millions of people cannot drive, cannot go to school, live in fear," said Dae Joong Yoon, the executive director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles. "In 2008, many of our community members voted for change. ... We've been waiting, waiting, waiting. But since then, our president, our Congress members have been in a deep sleep. So now we're saying, 'We can't take it anymore! Wake up! Do something!'"

And they aren't the only ones.

For the last six months, New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham have been trying to craft a bipartisan package that would make the....

After 18 months of talking, drafting and voting, Democrats find their backs against the wall on what was supposed to be the signature achievement of their reign, with nary a Republican vote in their pocket for healthcare reform.

As the Capitol readies for an epic showdown, the Congressional Budget Office is calculating how much the bill will cost -- which could provide talking points for the bill's critics. The Senate parliamentarian is drafting a paper to explain the arcane procedure called reconciliation, which could make Vice President Joe Biden, who technically presides over the Senate, a key player. Tea Party activists are descending to lobby wavering moderates against the measure, while Democratic organizers are -- some would say finally -- fighting back with rallies to support it.

President Obama, meanwhile, is doing what he does best: taking his populist campaign-mode vigor back on the road.

And this time, as he delivers another sleeves-rolled-up stump speech at St. Charles High School near St. Louis today, he's got a new pitch that could finally produce some bipartisan agreement. The idea: Get rid of waste and fraud -- estimated to cost $54 billion last year -- by hiring private auditors who, using high-tech computers, could scan Medicaid billing data for patterns of phony claims. The bounty hunters would get a fee, taxpayers would get relief, and a lot fewer seniors would be riding around in those motorized wheelchairs that give them an excuse not to exercise their bones and muscles.

Obama's also directing his Cabinet officers to step up their use of the accounting bounty hunters.

[Updated at 9:55 a.m.: Rooting out waste, fraud and abuse is a perennial favorite among Republicans, so they were quick to dismiss this latest Obama charm offensive. “Tackling fraud and abuse is one of the issues that can and should form the basis of a bipartisan, step-by-step approach to healthcare reform," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday, "not as a hook to drag this monstrous bill over the finish line."]

Kind of makes you wonder why the Democrats didn't think of this sooner.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Getty Images

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Liberals might think twice about inviting self-described libertarian Lawrence Lessig to their next party.

At TEDx -- an offshoot of the renowned TED intellectual conferences -- the famed copyright pundit and Stanford law professor spoke about the values that the Democratic party should learn from conservatives.

The audibly skeptical crowd listened as Lessig, who confessed to being a former Young Republican, highlighted some fairly uncontroversial conservative values.

For example, conservatives love free markets -- except when discussing romance. Prostitution is not an industry they frequently promote.

"They understand there are places for the market, and there are places where the market should not exist," Lessig told the audience.

Over a slide of President Obama's campaign logo "change," Lessig, with purposeful irony, said, "Not a single example of reform has been produced yet. And we're not going to see this change in the system any time soon."

Lessig lists the following values as the conservative foundation: freedom, community, limited regulation and "respecting the creator."

"Now, if we can learn those values from some influencers on the right, if we can take them and incorporate them, maybe we can do a little trade," he said. "We learn those values on the left, and maybe they'll do health care or global warming legislation."

Perhaps it's worth a shot. The feuding Democratic Congress seems unable to push it through any other way.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Lawrence Lessig. Credit: William Mercer McLeod / For the Times