Still struggling to line up 60 votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster of health-care reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a strong signal Tuesday that President Obama is unlikely to be signing his top domestic priority into law this year as Democrats had hoped. "We're not going to be bound by timelines," Reid told reporters as he emerged from a weekly lunch with Democratic Senators. He vowed to pass a bill "as expeditiously as we can," which is another way of saying it is likely to be slow going over the weeks to come.

All year long, Democratic strategists on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have made no secret of the fact they do not view time as their friend on enacting health reform, a goal that has eluded every President since Harry Truman who has attempted it. At one point, Democrats had hoped to have the bill passed by both houses this summer, and on Obama's desk this fall. Instead, the August recess was dominated by cable television images of near-riots at congressional town hall meetings, and it took a dramatic, game-changing presidential address to a joint session of Congress to get it back on track.

But with the turning of a page in the calendar comes a new challenge -- Congress will be entering an election year, not normally a time when it likes to take big political risks. Nor are lawmakers generally prone to be quick off the starting blocks when they return to Washington from a Christmas recess, which means that the health care debate could drag on through the winter.