See this today at HuffPo?

President Obama's senior adviser met on Wednesday with one of the three Democratic candidates running for Illinois' likely-to-be open Senate seat.

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias stopped by the White House during a trip to Washington to discuss his prospects for winning the party's nomination. Leaving the front lawn, he said he had met with Obama's close confidant, David Axelrod, to discuss the upcoming primary, which will take place in February 2010.

Cool, no? Don't you wish you got to stop by the White House and hang out with David Axelrod, too? Wouldn't that make for an awesome photo to show Mom?

Here's the trouble, or what should be the trouble, though, regarding this particular visit if you're the Prez: Giannoulias, who somewhat amazingly to me stands a decent chance of winning the Democratic nomination for Illinois' open Senate seat (yeah, the one that used to be Obama's and which Blago allegedly tried to sell) and who crossed most political observers' radar screens courtesy of his speech at the Democratic National Convention last year, has also been described as "a man with banking ties to organized crime," and on pretty good grounds in my own personal opinion, too. I know he and Obama are chums (goodness knows why), but still, this is someone I totally would not want hanging out at the White House right now.

Yes, presumably Obama, Axelrod, and the DSCC and DNC are quite keen to keep the President's former Senate seat in Democratic hands, and to be fair, that's not looking as easy as one might have thought looking at the way the state has voted in recent years. Per HuffPo:...

Gay Patriot's Dan Blatt gives it:

According to the Advocate,

Shortly after President Barack Obama pledged Saturday to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Administration’s highest-ranking LGBT official said the White House is speaking with certain senators about strategies for repealing the policy — specifically Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“On ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ this administration is talking directly to the Hill — we are in direct discussions with Senator Lieberman,” John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, told The Advocate.

A spokesman for Senator Lieberman confirmed that the senator had been speaking to the White House about the bill. “Senator Lieberman has had discussions with representatives of the Administration and others on the best way to reverse this policy, which he has opposed since it was first proposed in 1993,” said Marshall Wittmann, Lieberman’s press secretary.

Smart move to work with Lieberman. Given the Connecticut Senator’s long-time support for a robust military, it’s makes a lot of sense to have him lead the effort to repeal this counterproductive measure. More perhaps than any other member of the Democratic caucus, Lieberman enjoys the respect of the military and Republicans. He can better frame repeal not as a gay rights’ issue but as a military issue, that the ban reduces the pool of recruits from which our armed services can draw....

Quelle surprise, it might be on the cards. Ed Morrissey writes about choice containment.

The Massachusetts adventure in health-care reform will take an entirely predictable turn in the near future, say providers within the network. The state panel intends to dictate a narrower network of providers for some insurance plans, which providers insist will result in a reduction of services to patients in hospitals and clinics. Massachusetts wants its citizens to choose second-tier hospitals and clinics to save costs, and plans to eliminate choice as a means to that end (via Instapundit):

The state’s ambitious plan to shake up how providers are paid could have a hidden price for patients: Controlling Massachusetts’ soaring medical costs, many health care leaders believe, may require residents to give up their nearly unlimited freedom to go to any hospital and specialist they want.

Efforts to keep patients in a defined provider network, or direct them to lower-cost hospitals could be unpopular, especially in a state where more than 40 percent of hospital care is provided in expensive academic medical centers and where many insurance policies allow patients access to large numbers of providers.

But a growing number of hospital officials and physician lead ers warn that the new payment system proposed by a state commission would not work without restrictions on where patients receive care - an issue some providers say the commission and the Patrick administration have glossed over....

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