January 10, 2008

Another NH Explanation – The Hillary Effect

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Add another potential explanation for Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire victory to my on-the-fly list composed on election night: the Hillary Effect.

The idea, courtesy of Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, is that supporting Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary opens a voter up to accusations of being (1) for the old guard; (2) resistant to change; (3) blind to all of Obama’s messianic glory; (4) motivated by a simple gender-based preference, if you are a woman; and/or (5) subtly or not so subtly motivated by race, if you are white. And Hillary supporters just don’t want to put up with it any more. They don’t want to be judged by their fellow liberals and they don’t want to be yelled at by conservatives. So they are purposefully vague when they are polled (either suggesting that they are undecided, or for another candidate), and then pull the lever for HRC in the privacy of the voting booth.

Something to consider…

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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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