To many political strategists, pundits and observers, the results of yesterday’s primary elections may offer key insights to voter behavior in November’s midterm elections. Did yesterday’s results challenge the popular notion that the 2010 elections will be a correction to the Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate? Or was there even bigger surprises in the form of viable, Tea Party candidate?

In Great Britain this week, a center-left political party — the Liberal Democrats — played the power broker in recent elections, teaming up with new PM David Cameron's Conservative Party to create the first coalition government in Britain in 70 years. Could a third party ever play kingmaker here, in the United States?

A new NBC/WSJ poll suggests that many people wouldn't object: More than 80 percent see problems with America's two-party system, and nearly one third of the country believes that America needs a third party.

Today is tax day. (So go mail in your paperwork or file for an automatic extension, folks.) It's no surprise that today is the day Tea Party activists have chosen to rally, across the country, against what they call, unnecessary government largess. There will be hundreds of small rallies in cities from Walla Walla, Wash. to Niceville, Fla. They are all loosely related to the Tea Party Express, which arrives in Washington, D.C. at 11:00 a.m., revved up after a speech from Sarah Palin in Boston yesterday.

The Democratic Party found out this week that two of its stars will be setting: Senators Christopher Dodd from Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota – who’ve served a combined 46 years in the Senate. Both announced they will not seek reelection in 2010.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter followed their lead and also announced yesterday he’s ending his bid to keep his seat. These retirements come on top of a string of party defections and seem to weaken the Democrats... With us this morning to look at the political landscape and history, as well as what’s at stake for both Democrats and Republicans, is Jeff Zeleny from The New York Times.  We're also joined by Ron Kaufman, former White House political director; Republican National Committeeman for Massachusetts, and a close friend and advisor to Mitt Romney. Kaufman talks about what Republicans' strategy should be for the 2010 midterm elections.

Yesterday, we spoke with House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.,) about the Republican plan for health care reform. Today we talk with House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who has just one more day to line up votes for the House Democrats' health care reform plan. Ahead of Saturday's expected vote, he joins us for a look at what's in and what's out in the Democrats' bill.

Rep. Clyburn also gives us his thoughts on the shooting in Fort Hood, Texas. (click through for a full interview transcript)

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives aren't satisfied with the health care reform bill drafted by the Democrats, so they have written a health care bill of their own. There are significant aspects of the Republican bill that aren't yet clear, chief among them how much the plan would cost. An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office said the GOP plan would insure only 3 million of those currently without health insurance. By comparison, the Democratic plan would insure 36 million currently uninsured Americans. (Both estimates look ahead to the year 2019.) While the Democrats' bill would cover 96 percent of eligible Americans, the Republican alternative would cover 83 percent — roughly comparable to current levels. House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) joins us with a look inside the Republican bill and his take on the nation's priorities for health care reform. (Click through for a full interview transcript.)

Join us tomorrow when Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the House Majority Whip, talks with us about the Democrats' health care reform ideas.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) is still the chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, despite the fact that House Republicans voted to oust him from the chair. As expected, the move failed on a near party-line vote. But that doesn't mean Rangel is out of the hot seat. Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway's Washington correspondent, has the story.

In the Senate Finance Committee today, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) are introducing an amendment to add the hotly-contested public option to the Finance Committee's health care bill. We talk with Douglas Schoen, Democratic pollster and former Clinton consultant, and our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, explains the ramifications of the amendment.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) had hoped that the Senate Finance Committee would be finished marking up his health care bill by Friday. As the deadline looms large, the committee appears to be slowing down, despite Democratic majorities in Congress urging quick action. The Takeaway's Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, explains why time is of the essence and why all eyes are on Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) has been getting a lot of attention lately for his leadership in the health care debate ... not all of it good. Our Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich explains how isolated Baucus is these days on Capitol Hill.

Frank Luntz is a long-time Republican operative: a virtuoso of the focus group, a pollster extraordinaire and a master of message. In his latest book, "What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears," Luntz asks what ordinary Americans want – not from their government, but from life. And the results are a little surprising.

With a roll call vote of 240-179 mainly along party lines, the House of Representatives yesterday passed a resolution of disapproval of Congressman Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina). Wilson yelled "you lie" in the midst of President Obama's address to Congress last week; the House reprimand said that Wilson had committed a “breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House.” One of the “yes” votes on that resolution came from Rep. Laura Richardson (D-California), who joins us this morning. (click through for a full interview transcript)

For a refresher on Wilson's outburst watch the start of the ruckus below:

The biggest task for President Obama in his speech on Wednesday night was to take back the health care debate after a chaotic summer where unruly town halls and misrepresentations dominated the headlines. Yesterday, it seemed, some of that chaos continued, much of it centered on two words blurted by Representative Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina): “You lie!” Wilson shouted the words in response to the president’s claim that no illegal immigrants would receive health care under his plan. Yesterday, after a request from GOP leadership, Wilson apologized for his outburst, calling it "spontaneous." For a look at how politics changed for Republicans this week we speak to Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been working on its own health care bill. We also talk to Jackie Calmes, Washington correspondent for the New York Times, about the raucous disagreement between the political parties and what it means for health care reform. (Read the full interview transcript)

In case you missed the presidential address, here it is in its entirety:

Health care, health care, health care. It’s all you see on the news, read in the papers, and hear on the radio. Will it pass? When? What will it look like if it does? What will things look like if it doesn't? We've been looking both at the broad strokes and picayune details of the various plans; today, we take a look at the potential ramifications of this debate on the political landscape.

The Democrats practically swept the 2006 elections and handily won the 2008 presidential elections, while the Republicans struggled with an identity crisis. But with this health care battle, has the G.O.P. found the grounds for a resurgence? Joining us with their take are Reihan Salam, from the New American Foundation, and Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University.

The facts. The skinny. The straight dope. If you're talking about health care reform (and who isn't, these days?), the truth has been thoroughly muddled lately with a lot of buzzwords, misnomers and outright fabrication. That's why The Takeaway is talking to Art Caplan. He's the director of the Center of Bio-Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and he's going to put the health care debate and such concepts as the potential "co-operative insurance consortia" into plain-speak.

The health care reform battle has left the Beltway and has headed home with the members of Congress. The debate has gotten increasingly vitriolic as town halls have been swarmed with organized angry protesters trying to shout down Democratic Congressmen. Today The Takeaway talks to the person in charge of fighting back. Linda Douglass is director of communications for the White House Office on Health care Reform.

Here's a video of Linda Douglass addressing a story that makes it look like the President intends to eliminate private health care coverage:

As the debate over health care reform has followed Congresspeople to their home districts, some of the conversations have gotten ugly. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democratic congressman from Texas, held a town hall where constituents became unruly. He joins The Takeaway with his thoughts on why this issue is becoming ever-more-contentious. One factor: Max Pappas. Mr. Pappas is the vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks, a conservative organization that is encouraging its members to challenge Democrats on health care reform. Some members of FreedomWorks were part of the crowd that shouted down Senator Arlen Specter at a health care meeting in Philadelphia last weekend. Mr. Pappas helps us understand his motivation.

To see how ugly a town meeting can get, especially in Texas, watch the video of Rep. Doggett's health care town hall:

President Obama has said "it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be." This stance has riled some Republicans who are urging the president to show solidarity with Moussavi supporters. To explain his view, The Takeaway is joined by Congressman Mike Pence, Republican from Indiana and Chairman of the House Republican Conference. He has introduced a resolution in Congress to express support for the protesters. We also have Professor Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University and author of Iran: A People Interrupted, for his take.

President Obama delivered a strong speech on national security yesterday. And then, so did former Vice President Dick Cheney, who harshly critcized the current commander in chief. Meanwhile the liberal wing of the Democratic party is lambasting Obama as well. Pitting the extremes against each other while sliding through the middle -- "triangulation" -- is a political strategy that former President Bill Clinton came to rely on. Peter Baker, White House correspondent for The New York Times, joins The Takeaway to discuss how Obama seems to be developing a triangulation strategy of his own.

For more, read Peter Baker's article, Obama Faces Pitfalls With ‘Surgical’ Tack on Detainees, in the New York Times.

Regulating greenhouse gases has been one of the most contentious issues for the EPA. In 2003, the agency ruled that carbon dioxide could not be regulated as a pollutant. A 2007 Supreme Court decision ordered the EPA to review the scientific case for that decision, but the Bush administration ignored that ruling. With the new administration in place, things are expected to change. Lisa Jackson, the new Administrator of the EPA, joins The Takeaway to explain the Agency's plans. Also joining the conversation is Congressman Fred Upton, a Republican Congressman from Michigan, who is the Ranking member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee. He's one of the leading opponents of cap-and-trade and the Waxman-Markey climate bill working its way through Congress. He joins The Takeaway with his opposition to the bill and why he thinks it would mortgage our future.