This just in from Gallup: the public is every bit as divided on health care today as they were a month ago. Meanwhile, yesterday President Obama spent part of his speech at the AFL-CIO picnic in Ohio making the case for health care - but in language that is virtually unchanged from the stuff that has failed miserably in his first seven months.

In many ways health care is to Obama what Iraq was to Bush. President Bush kept reciting the same points over and over until the public simply tuned him out and - even worse for a president - stopped believing what he was saying. The same seems true of Obama with health care.  Another big speech seems unlikely to change the dynamic that has settled over this debate,  nor will it be likely to move votes.

What could move votes is a change in negotiating tactics and the offering actual compromises (like tort reform) that could bring Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans on board. But Obama is in a pinch because making those compromises will cost him votes from the left.

So Obama faces a fairly stark choice: stick with the liberals and try to ram through a health care reform bill along partisan lines, or anger liberals by moving to the center and getting enough votes for passage with a more truly centrist and potentially bipartisan bill.

My guess is that he will do the former because 1) he cannot afford to lose his liberal base and believes he will have plenty of time (and a rebounding economy) to win back the middle and 2) his head, his heart, and his instincts are with progressives, not with centrists.