What Should John McCain’s Next Campaign Stunt Be?

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Barney Frank said of John McCain’s campaign (non-)suspension, “It’s the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys.” Should the suspension and these bailout shenanigans not lift his poll numbers — just like Sarah Palin, the ultimate campaign Hail Mary, ultimately failed to — what stunt does John McCain turn to next? Slate has 10 guesses, a couple I’ll reproduce here:

– Returns to Vietnam and jails himself.
– Offers the post of “vice vice president” to Warren Buffett.
– Challenges Obama to suspend campaign so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore.
– Learns to use computer.

Slate wants to know if you have any good ones to add. And speaking of play-along-at-home Slate features, they recently created a list of Bush Administration executive orders that need to go — they highlighted the worst nine out of Bush’s 262 EOs and want to know if you can think of a tenth.

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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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