September 25, 2008

Sarah Palin Unplugged

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SARAH PALIN UNPLUGGED….Look, this is just getting scary. I don’t care how partisan you are, you can’t watch this clip from Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric without wondering if she’s completely cracked under the pressure of running for vice president. The question is a simple softball about the bailout — something she’s had weeks to bone up on — but her answer is incoherent. Not just the usual platitudes politicians offer when they don’t feel like answering a tough query, but completely incoherent. Hell, it’s barely even in English.

I don’t even feel right making snarky jokes about this stuff anymore. This campaign has gone seriously off the rails. I’ve never seen anything like it, but everyone is still nattering on as if this is business as usual. If it is, though, we’ve already entered the world of Idiocracy and we might as well all just give up and enjoy our super-size Slurpees while we can.

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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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