8 a.m. ET: A week that will include the one-year anniversary of President Obama's election will also provide two key referendums on his tenure so far -- a trio of off-year contests Tuesday and a House vote to move health-care reform forward a few days later.

In 24 hours, the polls will be open in Virginia, New Jersey and New York's 23rd district, and Republicans and Democrats are already battling to set expectations ahead of a wave of "what does it all mean?" stories Wednesday morning. In New York, Dede Scozzafava's decision to drop out of the House special election (and endorse Democrat Bill Owens) turned the contest upside down, as Republicans raced to embrace Doug Hoffman, grassroots conservatives crowed over their victory and Democrats fretted that their opening to steal a seat may have closed. The Associated Press writes that Scozzafava's move to withdraw "could consolidate Republican voters behind Hoffman and improve the party's chances of retaining the seat, which has been represented by a Republican for more than 100 years." While Scozzafava's conservative backers (the few that there were) shifted their support to Hoffman, labor unions moved to back Owens, the Watertown Daily Times reports. In Washington, Republican leaders quickly coalesced behind Hoffman and pledged to get him a seat on the Armed Services Committee, a key chit in this district. One survey already purports to show Hoffman taking a commanding lead in the race, though polling such a fluid contest over the weekend must have been difficult.

In New Jersey, Obama put "his own political capital on the line" by doing two events Sunday for Jon Corzine, Politico writes, as Democrats hope a win in the Garden State will "lessen attention on the party’s anticipated loss in the Virginia gubernatorial contest." The Washington Times reports that a "loss in Tuesday's vote [for Corzine] would cast doubts over the president's ambitious agenda and signal trouble ahead for other Democratic candidates next year." Chris Daggett, the independent candidate in the New Jersey contest, is seen as having little chance to win but is still scrambling expectations because handicappers have no idea how many voters will actually support him on Election Day. Daggett inaccurately claimed Sunday that Sarah Palin had called on him to drop out, ABC News writes, apparently hearing the false tidbit "from people on his campaign bus who themselves were mistaken and relying on an unsubstantiated blog item." In Virginia, Robert McDonnell "appears poised to win the governorship and lead a GOP sweep Tuesday, ending nearly a decade of reverses for his party," the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

Assessing the current state of play -- the House is poised to vote on its bill this week and the Senate is poised to follow suit soon after -- the New York Times judges that Obama's "arms-length strategy on health care appears to be paying dividends." Who says so? The White House does. And perhaps it's true the reform train would never have reached this station if Obama had meddled earlier in the debate. Or maybe the bill would have gotten done much more quickly, and more to Obama's liking. It's impossible to say with any certainty. Politico writes that Obama "has worked behind the scenes to move the process along." Regardless of the merits of the White House strategy, it remains to be seen whether Harry Reid can muster 60 votes in the Senate. In a comment sure to endear him further to liberals, Joe Lieberman said on CNN Sunday that doing "nothing is better than" passing a reform bill with a public option.

In the House, Roll Call writes, getting to a vote this week "will require leaders to hurdle hang-ups over abortion and immigration language, moderates’ gripes on the overall cost of the bill, liberal demands for symbolic votes on their preferred provisions and an unknown array of parochial concerns." John Boehner said Sunday that Republicans would propose their own health-care bill, one that will surely be much narrower than Democrats' proposals but will at least allow the minority to claim they have an idea on the table. The GOP still believes this issue will accrue to their benefit -- Ed Gillespie says Democrats "risk losing the House" because of it. The Associated Press digs into the details of reform, writing one piece on how the measures would raise taxes on Americans in various income brackets, and a second story on how flexible spending accounts would "take a hit" under the current proposals.

Remember Obama's other major priority for the year -- a climate change bill? That measure has been getting scant attention from the media during the all-consuming health-care debate, and now faces a markup Tuesday amid questions about its political viability. The Washington Post writes of the climate measure: "With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the legislation, there is almost no hope for passage." On the brighter side for Democrats, the Wall Street Journal reports that Obama "has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list for years."

Reports from Afghanistan indicate that next Saturday's scheduled presidential runoff has been canceled, after Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the contest over the weekend. Hamid Karzai was viewed as almost certain to win the runoff, but the U.S. and its allies wanted the election to occur anyway in hopes of trying to remove the taint of their first contest.
The New York Times says Obama "now faces a new complication: enabling a badly tarnished partner to regain enough legitimacy to help the United States find the way out of an eight-year-old war."

The Washington Post takes a broad look at Obama's "cool, interests-based approach" to foreign policy, which has yet to yield many tangible victories but has only been in place for 10 months after eight years of a starkly different strategy. Leslie Gelb says Obama "has arrived at a terrible moment of truth in foreign policy," and has done little to defuse crises in Iran, Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan. Under the headline, "Clinton Reasserts Her Role in U.S. Foreign Policy," the Wall Street Journal writes that the secretary of state "has appeared at times a marginal player on a national-security team dominated by special diplomatic envoys and ... Obama himself," but Clinton used her trip across the Middle East last week to boost her influence and make her voice heard. But Laura Rozen writes that Clinton misfired during the trip, creating the unwanted impression that the U.S. was leaning back toward Israel on the issue of settlements.