Former President Bill Clinton met with Senate Democrats today to talk about climate change, CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen reports. The visit follows a meeting in the White House last week Mr. Obama had with 14 senators, including six Republicans, according to Daily Beast columnist Richard Wolffe.

"The White House remains surprisingly confident that they will be able to pick off enough support from the opposition party to move forward on these major issues [including climate change], even in an election year," Wolffe writes.

Not all political analysts would agree the White House is ready to take up such an ambitious agenda item.

"Democrats have to turn to jobs and the economy to convince the American public they are doing things," Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg report said on CBSNews.com's "Washington Unplugged" today.

There is certainly room for bipartisan support on the issue, however. The Christian Coalition of America, founded by conservative televangelist Pat Robertson, supports climate change legislation and last week released a radio ad urging its supporters to call Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and encourage him to continue working on the issue.

"I've heard from so many Christian Coalition supporters that energy is one of the most important issues we face today," Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs says in the ad. "We've got to take the lead to explore energy alternatives and protect our national security."

Graham has been working with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to craft climate change legislation, but the task will prove even harder in the political environment the health care debate has created. Graham on Sunday slammed the president for pushing his health care agenda forward after failing to win any bipartisan support for it.

"If they do this, it's going to poison the well for anything else they would like to achieve this year or thereafter," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Climate change legislation could be especially hurt by the focus on horsetrading within the health care debate, Politico reports. For instance, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) was lambasted for negotiating a deal with Senate leaders in which his state would be exempt from paying for any expansions of Medicaid -- a deal later dubbed the "Cornhusker Kickback."

Legislators will likely have to work out a number of such deals for climate change legislation, however, since energy and environmental policies impact different states and regions very differently. Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, for instance, is requesting tens of billions of dollars in assistance for his state to help it cope with melting sea ice and other damaging effects of climate change, Politico reports.

"There's no state that is affected like us, and for that not to be addressed will be a significant problem for me," Begich said.