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Florida Senator Bill Nelson had this to say on Good Morning America today:

“The president’s instincts are right in the mainstream of America. I think he’s allowed the left wing pull him too much in that direction. But he always comes back into the center.”

This is one of those things that makes me feel like I live not just on a different coast than the Washingtonocracy, but on a different planet. My take on Obama for quite a while has been exactly the opposite of Nelson’s: I think one of his big problems is that he considers it a grave character defect to ever openly throw a bone to the left. Throwing those bones — even smallish, symbolic ones — would have done him an immense amount of good during his first year, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe a firm statement about DADT even if action didn’t come until later. Or a serious effort to claw back the AIG bonuses even if it didn’t work. Or — obviously — full-throated support of the public option even if it eventually got killed by Joe Lieberman. But none of that happened. I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s so hypersensitive to accusations of “pandering to the left” that he’ll do almost anything to avoid them.

But I’m a partisan liberal, so maybe I’m just blind to all the bone throwing he’s done. Feel free to set me straight in comments.

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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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