Charles Babington and Jim VandeHei wait until the 15th paragraph of their front page article in tomorrow's Washington Post to deliver this important point:

Unlike recent battles over tax cuts, the threat of Bush campaigning for their defeat does not appear to be scaring Democratic senators, White House officials concede. Some aides are surprised at the unified and stubborn opposition of Democrats and, in a tone that sounds much more pessimistic than a few weeks ago, talk of how a defeat of the Bush plan this year could lead to GOP congressional and gubernatorial losses in 2006.

Babington and VandeHei also note that Republican Senators Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) have yet to sign on to the plan, signalling that the President has quite a ways to go before he's able to privatize Social Security. Richard W. Stevenson emphasizes this point in The New York Times.

When President Bush began barnstorming on behalf of his Social Security plan last month, his goal at many stops was to convince Congressional Democrats that backing his call for individual investment accounts would be good politics. He is still trying to flex his political muscle to that end, but in a sign of the trouble he faces on the issue, he is increasingly using his travels to buck up - or even win over - members of his own party.

On the first day of a two-day swing that will take him through four states that he carried last November, Mr. Bush made his initial stop on Thursday in Louisville, Ky., where he provided political cover to Representative Anne M. Northup, a Republican from a district won by Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. Ms. Northup, who flew in from Washington on Air Force One with Mr. Bush and introduced him to the crowd, has been an advocate of his call to allow workers to invest part of their Social Security payroll taxes.

Not present was another member of the Kentucky Congressional delegation, Representative Geoff Davis, a Republican who said that he applauded Mr. Bush for addressing Social Security's projected long-term financial problems but that he was undecided about private accounts.

From Kentucky, Mr. Bush went to Alabama. While most of the Alabama Republican delegation supports him on Social Security, one Republican House member, Representative Mike D. Rogers, wrote in a local newspaper last week that he was "opposed to privatizing Social Security" and that he had "serious reservations about burdening Alabamians with the need to become experts on the stock market or picking the right stock to ensure a good retirement."

The President faces the strongest and most united Democratic Party in years and has yet to round up the support of his party... though some in the media might be bamboozled into believing Bushg is prevailing in this fight at this juncture, the fact is that this battle is now the Democrats' to lose.

[Update 9:27 PM Pacific]: Add Medicaid as another issue upon which the President should expect to find significant opposition from within his own party. The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David D. Kirkpatrick have the story:

President Bush's request that Congress slow the growth of Medicaid, a centerpiece of the White House budget for 2006, is drawing opposition from some Senate Republicans, who are caught between their desire to support the president and pressure from home-state governors resisting the cuts.

One Republican, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, said he would call for a commission to examine the finances of Medicaid, the government insurance plan for the poor, in an attempt to generate bipartisan proposals about how to rein in the soaring cost of the program. Another, Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, said he was worried about the impact Medicaid cuts would have on his state. A third, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, said he was not ready to sign off on cuts.

"There is widespread concern about what is being asked in the nature of these cuts," Mr. Coleman said. "I've got a good Republican governor in Minnesota who has deep concerns," he added, referring to Tim Pawlenty, a popular conservative considered a rising star in the party.

The Republicans may have won the first two major fights of the 109th Congress -- Tort "Reform" and Bankruptcy "Reform" -- but it looks like the next two battles -- Social Security and the Budget -- might not be quite as easy for them.