Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other National Security Council members have reached out to individual lawmakers. High-ranking administration officials have been dispatched to give intelligence briefings — Sunday’s classified session in the Capitol, attended by 70 lawmakers, will be followed by another round of conference calls this week. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent critic of Obama’s who has argued for robust U.S. intervention in Syria, will meet Obama at the White House on Monday.

It’s a “flood the zone” approach, said one senior administration official familiar with the president’s strategy. The upside to a win: Obama could get some of his juice back, both at home and abroad, and Congress would co-own the fallout if anything goes wrong in Syria.

But some of Obama’s allies say it looks like he’s misread Capitol Hill — badly.

“This could be the biggest miscalculation of his presidency,” a senior House Democrat told POLITICO Sunday. “Not only is his credibility on the line but the country’s credibility is on the line, so he is rolling the dice by taking this to Congress.”