And the Money Kept Rolling In…

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Well, for all the concerns and hand-wringing of various Democrats over the past half-year, it seems that Howard Dean is performing just fine as chief fundraiser for the DNC. Here is the FEC report:

During the first six months of 2005, federally registered Republican party committees raised $142.7 million and spent $98.1 million, while the Democratic committees raised $86.3 million and spent $60.2 million. This is a 2% increase in receipts for Republicans when compared to the same period in 2003 and a 53% increase for Democrats. When compared to the same period in 2001, the last non-presidential cycle, Republicans registered a 50% increase in federal receipts, while the Democrats showed a 113% increase.

The Republican party, quite clearly, has a huge lead in fundraising, but Democrats are closing the gap decently enough. Interestingly, the gap used to be much, much larger—poking around through the charts, back in 1989 the RNC was raising six times as much money as the DNC ($18 million to about $3 million.) This despite the fact that the party is out of power and presumably gets fewer donations from corporate donors. (Although, Democratic votes for the recent bankruptcy bill no doubt helped peel off a few bucks from MNBA and other financial companies.) Anyway, a lot of money sloshing around there…

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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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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