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BIDEN vs. PALIN….Nancy Gibbs, like many other people, wonders how Sarah Palin is going to do against Joe Biden on Thursday night:

With Charlie Gibson the waters were smooth if shallow; with Katie Couric she seemed forever at risk of drowning in her own syntax. But if she’s growing less surefooted with each passing day of cramming, who can blame her, when the highly experienced Republican pols around her don’t seem to trust her to talk past her talking points….All I know is that with each passing day, Palin’s road gets harder, the expectations higher, the margin for error smaller.

No kidding. But there’s a flip side to this too: it takes a lot of pressure off Biden. When Palin was first nominated, pundits fell all over themselves to advise Biden to watch his tongue when he faced Palin in debate. Don’t look like a bully! Don’t be sarcastic! Don’t talk down to her!

Well, guess what? It turns out he doesn’t need to. Attacking Palin — all the while worrying about whether this attack is too much or that attack will turn off women — is completely unnecessary. Biden just needs to show up, talk normally, and wait for her to implode. That’s got to be a relief, no?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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