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Over at the mothership, Stephanie Mencimer says that former Christian Coalition wunderkind Ralph Reed is “still one of the shrewder observers of American politics.” Maybe so, but this sure doesn’t convince me:

To support his assessment that the election was a direct reflection of the voters’ feelings about Obama, Reed produced some exit polling data that showed that Obama is far more hated among midterm voters than even Bill Clinton was in 1994. According to Reed’s surveys, 63 percent of voters said their midterm votes were intended to send the message that they were opposed to the president and his agenda, the highest ever recorded.

Hmmm. According to the standard exit polls, 37% of the electorate said their vote was meant to express opposition to Obama. Those numbers might be off by a few points, but there’s no way they’re off by 26 points. This sounds a lot less like shrewdness than it does good old fashioned spin.

Beware the pundits. Beware the spin.

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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.

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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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