As you know, the Catholic Church is playing a big role in the final decision-making of a lot of pro-life Dems. But the details are more complicated than you might realize. The Conference of Catholic Bishops is on one side; U.S. Catholic Nuns and the Catholic Hospital Association are on the other. And a number of wavering members have been consulting priests who’ve been visiting Capitol Hill to get precise explanations of the theological issues, where the institutional church stands and one imagines just what their own obligations are as Catholics. Brian Beutler has the story.

Things seem to be coming together today about as well as the Dems could have expected. They seem to be getting a number of the pro-life Dems to sign on. And Stupak seems to be conceding the vote though he’ll personally still vote against. They got solid news from the CBO this morning and that’s pulling a few of the Blue Dogs back into the fold. We’re following every development in our TPM auto-updating Countdown to Reform Wire.

The latest Rasmussen poll has John McCain up over primary challenger and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth by a mere 7 points. As a point of comparison, Rasmussen’s last poll of this race, from two months ago, had McCain holding a 22 point margin.

Reports last night in Las Vegas and this afternoon in DC suggest that the FBI’s investigation into Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) is the real deal. At issue is whether Ensign did anything criminally wrong as he tried to extricate himself from his affair with his campaign staffer, the wife of his Senate staffer, and then help the husband find employment and business opportunities elsewhere. My sense initially was that the investigation might be a bit of a stretch, where the FBI would take a quick look and determine there wasn’t enough there to pursue. But clearly that’s not what has happened.

Christiane Amanpour will be the new host of ABC’s “This Week.”

Late last week, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) was on national TV saying he would switch his vote to no on health care reform because of the provisions affecting illegal immigrants. But readers — in and out of his district — who were calling his office reported that they were getting a different story, that Gutierrez might still vote yes. And if you parsed his public statements, especially knowing what his office was telling constituents, you could see he left himself some wiggle room. This afternoon, Gutierrez announced that he would vote yes after all.

Okay, we just had another ‘no’ from round one announce she’s switching to ‘yes’. This time it’s Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO). We’re tracking every announcement in real time in our auto-updating TPM Countdown to Reform Wire.

Leadership is suggesting he’s still gettable. But Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) who represents South Boston and other suburbs just south of Boston released a statement this afternoon that not only said he planned to vote no but also said things that would seem to make it awfully hard to switch to yes. And this was just before he was scheduled to go meet one on one with President Obama. We’re not certain quite what’s up with Lynch. But we’re looking into it.

Shots from last night’s Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner in DC:

Even after a 40 minute meeting with the president yesterday, Rep. Lynch (D-MA) is still a no on Health Care Reform. Looking like a pretty likely primary challenge to come.