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As we wait for the State of the Union address to begin, what’s the status of healthcare reform this particular micro-instant? Here are a few miscellaneous clues:

Nate Silver counts noses in the House and concludes that all is not lost: “The math is challenging, but not impossible. Although Democrats can expect at least 7 defections among people who voted for the bill originally and possibly as many as 15-20, there are at least a dozen and possibly as many as 15-18 Democrats who could at least potentially be whipped in favor of the bill….Democrats will require both some focus and some luck. Nevertheless, the path to health care is probably still there, obscured as though it might be by the dramatics of the past eight days.”

Jon Cohn senses that there’s more room for compromise than it seems: “Most of the centrist senators complaining about reconciliation aren’t ruling it out altogether: If you read their quotes carefully, you’ll see most of them express concern but leave room to embrace reconciliation under certain conditions — if the process is “transparent,” if the changes themselves are relatively narrow, and so on. It’s exactly the kind of posturing you’d expect in a negotiation. The end is not here. It may not even be that near.”

Chris Hayes thinks passing the Senate bill along with a reconciliation deal is hard but doable: “After spending much of yesterday talking to folks on capitol hill, it’s clear there is increasingly consensus on a path forward….This does not mean, by any earthly means, this is a done deal….But there’s a very doable path forward, and there are almost certainly the votes to get it done. It really is a question of political will and pressure at this point. That may not be very comforting given the lack of leadership demonstrated over the last two weeks, but it’s something.”

Greg Sargent reports on what kind of leadership Obama is likely to offer tonight: “White House communications director  Dan Pfeiffer told Capitol Hill staffers on a private briefing call that in his speech tonight, Obama will leave no doubt that his commitment to addressing health care is as strong right now as it was in his September speech, a White House official tells me….There had been some talk that Obama might call for a scaled-down approach tonight. Others wondered whether he would give the issue short shrift. But both of those possibilities seem unlikely, given what Pfeiffer is telling Hill staff.”

Hmmm.  I hope Obama offers a whole lot more than just a vague affirmation that his commitment to healthcare is as strong as ever. What I’d like to hear from him is a clear and compelling sales job for the Democratic plan and an equally clear sign of support for passing the Senate bill along with some later fixes. We know he’s in favor of healthcare reform already. Now we need to know exactly what he’s willing to put the full weight of his presidency behind.

Basically, I’m with Andrew Sullivan on this: “I have one simple test: if the health bill dies from neglect and irresolution, Obama is no leader. He is a follower.” It’s time to lead.

As usual, I’ll be liveblogging the SOTU tonight. All the cool bloggers have decamped to Twitter for their real-time response, but I’m going to continue kicking it old school this year in addition to whatever quick tweets I send out. See you in an hour.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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