WASHINGTON — The law professor side of President Obama is highly intrigued by the Supreme Court hearings over the constitutionality of his health care law. He studied a summary of the arguments aboard Air Force One as he flew back from a nuclear summit meeting in South Korea.

The political side of the president may need to draw upon his judicial patience as he awaits a ruling that will help shape the final stages of the presidential race.

For all of the fretting by liberals and the tea-leaf reading by legal analysts about the pointed questioning from the justices about the health law, there is but one certainty: There will be substantial political fallout no matter how the court rules.

Successful political races, particularly presidential campaigns, are built on planning for every likely outcome. Mitt Romney, should he secure the Republican nomination, would confront tricky political calculations regardless of the ruling, given his role in enacting a health care law in Massachusetts built around the same type of mandate at the heart of the Supreme Court case.