July 20, 2010

The GOP Choice: Now With Added Science!

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Last night I suggested that whenever Republicans do something that excites their tea party base, it scares off independent voters and actually helps Democrats. But all I did was eyeball a couple of Gallup charts to come up with this theory. Political scientist Phil Klinkner decided to run some numbers, which he emailed to me:

I correlated partisan levels of enthusiasm with independents’ support for Democrats in the generic ballot. Here are the results:

Dem Enthusiasm -0.05
Ind Enthusiasm -0.1
Rep Enthusiasm .17

So, Democratic and Independent enthusiasm has no relationship with Indendents’ generic ballot preferences. On the other hand, as Republicans become more enthusiastic, Independent support for the Democrats goes up.

This may be the key to a Democratic victory. Get Republicans so ramped up that they drive Independents into the D column. A quick estimate says that if 100 percent of the GOP is very enthusiastic about voting, then Independents will favor the Democrats by 3 points, in which case the Democrats should win by about 11 points.

Phil goes on to joke that Democrats should “buy blocks of TV time and give them free of charge to Joe Wilson, Michele Bachmann, and Mark Williams.” In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know that my gut feel is now Backed Up By Science™.

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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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