March 29, 2010

Lede of the Day

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Lots of people tied for this award today, but let’s give it to the Washington Post’s Dan Eggen:

The Republican National Committee gave nearly $2,000 to a Southern California GOP contributor for meal expenses at Voyeur West Hollywood, a lesbian-themed California nightclub that features topless dancers wearing horse-bits and other bondage gear, according to newly filed disclosure records.

Here’s what I don’t get. Everyone knows that party expenditures are reported to the FEC quarterly and made public. So it’s not like this stuff has any chance of staying private. And yet, every few months we see yet another idiotic expenditure like this. What’s up with these guys?

Not that I want to put “these guys” into the same class as RNC chairman Michael Steele. Has any party ever had such a feckless, embarrassing chairman in recent memory? He’s a real piece of work. I’m counting on the New York Post to come up with a good headline for this.

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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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