October 4, 2008

MoJo Audio: Linguist Robin Lakoff Analyzes Sarah Palin’s Accent

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Last night after the veep debate, my friends and I couldn’t stop doing the Sarah Palin accent. But is she the only candidate on the campaign trail who sounds like where she comes from? And does she do it on purpose? I called on Robin Lakoff, a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, for some straight talk about the speech patterns of Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

In this podcast, Lakoff explains how Obama and McCain’s speech have evolved since we talked last year during primary season—and why there’s more to Palin’s speech than her Wasilla ways.

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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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