As the Financial Times points out, The One won't have an easy time next week. And his problem isn't the GOP... it's his own party.

Barack Obama faces a steep challenge in his address to the joint houses of Congress next Wednesday to get his healthcare reforms back on track without provoking revolt from either the moderate or the liberal wing of the Democratic party, say lawmakers.

Mr Obama, who has seen sharply declining public support for healthcare reform and steadily declining personal approval ratings, will set out his plans in “understandable, clear terms”, Joe Biden, the vice-president, said on Thursday.

But Democratic lawmakers on Thursday made clear that there were still seemingly unbridgeable differences between the centrist and progressive wings of the party. In August a group of 60 Democratic lawmakers wrote to the president to say they would vote against any healthcare bill that excluded the public insurance option on which Mr Obama had campaigned.

But centrist Democratic senators, including Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh, whose support will be essential to reform, on Thursday continued to signal that they would vote against any bill with a public option