October 16, 2008

Joe the….Um….Whatever

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JOE THE….UM….WHATEVER….Chris Orr is agog at the attention conservatives are paying to supposed weathervane du jour Joe the Plumber:

Do not expect this ardor to be dampened by the facts that Wurzelbacher is not an independent, makes nowhere near the $250,000 that prompted his question to Obama, and is not, in fact, a licensed plumber.

Okay, but at least his name really is Joe, isn’t it? That counts for something.

UPDATE: I was just kidding, but it turns out his name isn’t Joe. It’s Samuel. Sheesh. But I guess he goes by Joe.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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