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THE OBAMA INFOMERCIAL….The Nielsen people just emailed to tell me that Barack Obama’s infomercial last night was viewed by 21.7% of all households watching TV. That compares to 38.3% for the final Obama-McCain debate.

Is that good? Bad? I’m not sure, really. But with the kind of money the Obama campaign has, I guess it doesn’t matter much.

What did everyone think of it? I thought it was (duh) really well done and did a good job of presenting Obama as both a serious candidate and a normal human being. On the other hand, the tales of woe struck me as a little heavy handed. I think it might have been better if it had been a little less gloomy.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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