GOP Strategy in Maryland: Pretend You’re a Dem

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Now this is truly bizarre. In Maryland, where I spent most of the day reporting on technical snafus with the state’s electronic voting system, the GOP was handing out campaign literature that listed Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, who’s running for reelection, and Lt. Governor Michael Steele, who’s running against Ben Cardin for an open Senate seat, as Democrats. “The intent could not be clearer: to confuse those looking to vote a straight Democratic ticket,” the Washington Monthly reports. It gets stranger from here:

I talked to the man who handed me the pamphlet. A thirty-something African-American who wouldn’t give his name, he told me that, starting last Friday, some people had come to the Philadelphia homeless shelter where he said he volunteers, and had begun to recruit residents. Eventually, he said that 300 people filled five buses. He said he was paid $100 for the day’s work.

And this just in from the AP:

Governor Ehrlich’s campaign is acknowledging that it paid for fliers handed out on Election Day, suggesting Ehrlich and Michael Steele are Democrats.

I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

UPDATE: As Clara notes below, it looks like Steele’s Senate bid was unsuccessful.

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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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