Chart of the Day – 11.22.2008

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CHART OF THE DAY….This comes from David Sirota, who has been watching the outbreak of the “center right” meme ever since November 4th, which you might recall as the day that America elected a liberal president, a liberal Congress, and a liberal Senate. David asked a friend who works with a company called Trendrr to track mentions of the term, and the results are on the right:

The media has exponentially increased the amount of times it claims that this country is a “center-right nation” — at the very same time public opinion data shows the country is a decidedly center-left nation.

Indeed. I guess a desire for less Bush, less war, better healthcare, competent governance, acknowledgment that global warming isn’t fiction, and economic stimulus in the face of a massive recession is now evidence of a center right world view. As John Maynard Keynes famously said, “We are all center rightists now.”

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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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