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I’ve been busy and only just now got around to looking at the final results for Prop 19, the California initiative to legalize marijuana. Here it is:

I know this won’t be much solace to everyone who worked on Prop 19, but…..this isn’t so bad, really. Given the automatic headwind of getting people to vote Yes on anything, the additional headwind of a big Republican turnout, plus the general nervousness that middle class people have about drugs, a loss this small is actually sort of encouraging. All we need to turn this around in a few years is for 4% of voters to change their minds.

What’s more, the threat of Prop 19 passing probably helped to get the penalty for pot possession reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction. So now, on the off chance that you get caught with a small bag of weed, all you get is the equivalent of a traffic ticket. A lot of people think this reduced the incentive to vote for Prop 19 and thus helped to defeat it, and maybe it did (though I’m skeptical). But it still means we made progress. And we’re not very far from making even more. Probably not in 2012, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar to Prop 19 could pass by 2014 if the stars align favorably.

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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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