Rudy Giuliani is expected to announce today that he will not run for the Senate next year, media outlets report, ending Republican hopes for the party's strongest potential challenger to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

From the New York Post:

Giuliani's decision likely marks the end of his own electoral career.

He's expected to support Republican Rick Lazio for governor.

But Giuliani plans to continue to be a force within the party, helping to expand its base as well as speaking out on issues important to him.

New York polls have regularly found Giuliani leading Gillibrand, who was appointed to the seat a year ago after Hillary Clinton was named U.S. Secretary of State.

As the Senate pushes forward this week on health care reform, a new Quinnipiac survey finds a majority of voters do not favor the proposed changes to the health care system.

Fifty-three percent say they "mostly disapprove" the changes, and 56% say they don't want the system overhauled if it will increase the deficit -- 73% say it will do just that.

"While the Senate leadership reportedly has the votes to pass a health care overhaul plan this week, outside the Beltway there appears to be weak support, both to what voters understand as the plan, and the need to pass that plan now," said Quinnipiac assistant director Peter Brown.

A majority (56%) also disapproves of President Obama's handling of the issue, and the margin of voters who trust him more to handle health care than they do Republicans in Congress has shrunk.

"In July he enjoyed a 20-point edge on the trust question, and that margin has been narrowing, to 45 – 40 percent today," said Brown.

Interestingly, voters do approve of two options that were recently dropped from the Senate bill in order to win over moderate Democrats -- the public option (56% support it) and expansion of Medicare, which has 64% support.

The survey was conducted Dec. 15-20 of 1,616 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.4%.

Unless you carefully unpack the history of the last 30 years of elections in the Dakotas, it has to strike you as bizarre that the Democrats hold five of the six federal offices in those states (3 of 4 Senators, both Representatives). That may change next November, according to a new poll by RasmussenReports. Three-term Senator Byron Dorgan trails Governor John Hoeven by a 22 points, 58%-36%.

30% of North Dakotans favor the health care bill, while 64% oppose it. This makes it unlikely that Dorgan's numbers will improve after he casts at least five tiebreaking votes for the bill.

In a DailyKos/R2K poll done at the beginning of the year, Dorgan thumped Hoeven 57%-35%. Even setting aside questions about methodology and bias, you have to concede that significant movement has occurred. Dorgan has held statewide office since the waning days of the Johnson Administration and was recently one of the most popular senators in the country, so this is a highly significant result.

Interestingly, Dorgan has weak numbers against perennial candidate Duane Sand. He leads 52%-37%. A win is a win, but these are awfully tepid poll numbers against a candidate who has lost three bids for statewide office in the past decade. Speculation is that Hoeven isn't particularly interested in going to DC, but Republicans also hold the Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer, State Auditor, State Insurance Commissioner, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and Tax Commissioner spots, so in theory finding a credible candidate shouldn't be hard.

So it looks like Harry Reid wasn't bluffing last night. Ben Nelson declared his support for the bill this morning, albeit with a pretty stark warning at the end:

Let me be clear. This cloture vote is based on the full understanding that there will be a limited conference between the Senate and the House.

If there are material changes in that conference report different from this bill that adversely affect the agreement, I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote.

Let me repeat it: I reserve the right to vote against the next cloture vote if there are material changes to this agreement in the conference report. And I will vote against it if that is the case.

Barring some unforeseen glitch, Nelson appears to give Reid his 60th vote needed to invoke cloture and proceed to a 7pm Christmas Eve vote on the newly revised health care bill where a simple majority vote will send the legislation to conference.

That's where the real battle will begin. It appears that any of the changes wanted by House liberals to move the bill to the left could shatter Reid's fragile coalition in the Senate.  It will be fascinating to see if the Dems will be able to thread what looks to be one of the smallest needles ever.

Last week Harry Reid announced a "deal" that he claimed had the backing of 60 Senators. As it turned out, Reid was bluffing and never had the votes. There was never any deal.

Now, as the Democrats race against the clock to try and meet their self-imposed deadline of passing health care by Christmas, according to The Hill, Reid has announced he will unveil a new amendment tomorrow morning at 7:30am.

But does he have the votes, or is this another bluff by Reid to create the illusion that he's actually come up with something that will win the necessary 60 votes? Nobody knows, because Reid is conducting all negotiations privately and one-on-one. Not even members of Reid's own leadership in the Senate have a clue what's in the "new" compromise version of the health care bill or how much it will cost.

Reid may in fact have the votes. I guess we'll find out tomorrow morning. But given the way Reid has lied and manipulated the media and process, I won't believe it until I see it.

FWIW, in an interview with The Hill, former presidential Green Party Candidate and perennial political gadfly Ralph Nader ripped President Obama for his performance during his first year in office. Nader accused Obama of being "far too concessionary to large corporations" and said that his first year had been a "weak presentation of self."

Nader also said, "I never through he'd achieve the degree of political cowardliness he projects towards his oppoents or big business, or that politically that he'd turn his back on liberals and progressives...The minute you signal you're going to cave cave, you're going to cave... you lose your bargaining power."

Democratic strategist Joe Trippi joins FOX News.

The most read piece from the Times of London is a report on the "grim realities of being an airline stewardess:"

Being an air hostess isn't what it was. September 11 and 1p flights bought on the internet put paid to the glory days, the Leonardo DiCaprio Catch Me If You Can dream of martini-fuelled long-haul trips . Today's air hostess works long hours for little pay and is far more likely to be swallowing Prozac than swigging the vodka miniatures that she used to pinch from her trolley.

That and they have to put up with arrogant cads calling them a "bitch."

An interesting item from Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael Sneed:

Hmmm. Sneed hears rumbles White House social secretary Desiree Rogers has been corked . . . curbed . . . shushed . . . hushed . . . and told to keep the lid on it.

• Translation: The party planner of gate crasher/designer duds fame has been ordered to keep a low profile in the future and a zipped lip.

• Explanation: The muffle kerfuffle stems from the West Wing getting tired of the ego show in the East Wing, er, the ladies' room, if you get my drift. (When Desiree was Peoples Gas communications chief she selected herself to star in Peoples Gas TV ads!)

• Bling nation: Gate-crashing is a part of it ... but not all. How much you want to bet the expensive gowns and glamor by first lady Michelle Obama's East Wing clique get tamped down in this age of economic uncertainty?

My piece this morning, Obama's Enemies Conference Call, plays a bit with the world's most pure Stalinist Kim Jong-Il, among others. It gives me the excuse to post a hilarious video from earlier this year on that most famous infamous Kim of all Korea. In the video, notice that he's eating lobster, which the Il leader had flown in daily when he took a train across Russia. And of course, I must include at least one Team America scene as well. (NSFW Warning: both clips contain some explicit language, especially the Team America clip.)