My newest column at American Issues Project is up, titled Can Obama Take a Hint? This week, I examine the internal battle raging within our president over health care. Is it time to sound retreat and save his career, or is it time to keep pushing on and abandon hopes of a second term? Which will he choose and what will influence his decision? Read on…

It’s been interesting, trying to figure out what would be more important to him. On the one hand, getting single payer passed, starting with this so-called “public option” as a Trojan Horse, has been a goal of his for years. On the other hand, he’s seeing that it will be a political disaster and could possibly be the straw that broke the camel’s back, costing him his reelection in 2012. So what’s more important to him? Getting his lifetime goal of universal health care achieved, or his political aspirations as president? It’s an internal battle that seems to be raging within him.

One side of him is surely unwilling to give up. He feels, perhaps, that passing his government run health care plan and ultimately achieving universal health care will be the benchmark of his career. The initial outcry against his public option will fade in time, he reassures himself, and they’ll eventually come around to realize that this is what’s good for them. After all, morally superior countries like Canada, Great Britain, and Cuba all have universal health care, right?

The other side of him is facing reality. He sees the anger of his constituents. He sees the polls showing his own popularity slipping, as well as support for his health care overhaul. He’s scared, because he knows deep down that it very well may cost him the Democratic majority in Congress he’s currently enjoying, as well as his own reelection. He’s frantic, because he also knows that he’s split the Democratic party. The Blue Dog Democrats want nothing to do with this. The liberal Democrats don’t want any other health care plan besides this one. It’s unlikely that the two sides will compromise, and there’s Obama, caught right in the middle.

He really had no idea coming into office that his savior status would quickly fade and that governing would mean being forced to make tough decisions such as these.

So what forces are pulling him in two separate directions? Be sure to head on over and read the whole to find out, including who in Obama’s White House may be waving the white flag for him…