80% of Americans Think Bush’s New Iraq Language is Just Spin

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Via Political Wire (an excellent poll and politics site; if you haven’t checked it out, you should):

“A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end American military involvement in Iraq if they seize control of Congress next Tuesday, and say that Republicans would maintain — or increase — troop levels to try to win the war,” according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

“The poll found that just 29% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is managing the war in Iraq, matching the lowest mark of his presidency. Nearly 70% of Americans said Mr. Bush did not have a plan to end the war, and 80% said Mr. Bush’s latest offensive to rally public support for the conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy.

“The poll underlined the extent to which the war in Iraq has framed the midterm elections. It comes at a time when Democratic challengers across the country are running a final sweep of television advertisements attacking Mr. Bush’s handling of the war and as even some Republican incumbents — fearful of being swept out of office because of public opposition to the war — have become critical of it.”

In the generic congressional ballot, Democrats lead Republicans by a stunning 19 points, 53% to 33%.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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