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When I heard that Virginia’s shiny new GOP governor, Bob McDonnell, was going to deliver the response to the State of the Union address tonight, my first thought was, “Does he have a death wish? Why is he planning to wreck his career before it’s even started?” After all, SOTU responses are famously stiff and crappy and almost never make their speaker look good. Speeches like this really need to be delivered in front of a crowd to be effective, instead of recited stiffly into a bare camera.

But it turns out McDonnell is a smart cookie. Via Matt Yglesias, here’s his plan:

When the national spotlight turns to Gov. Bob McDonnell tonight as he delivers the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, he’ll be surrounded by 300 people in the chamber of the Virginia House of Delegates. McDonnell plans to stand in the well of the House accompanied by family, supporters, administration officials, activists and lawmakers, some of whom will stand on risers set up for the live speech.

This is still less than ideal. It would be better to fill the whole chamber, rather than set up risers for a few hundred supporters. You need loud applause! You need cheers! But it’s still a big improvement. It’ll be interesting to see if McDonnell makes anything of it.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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