November 9, 2006

Big D Stands for Democrat

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JR is finally dead. Dallas, the city of the eponymous TV show, the city which has (somewhat unfairly) been linked more than any other in the national psyche with everything Republican, is Republican no more. As the Dallas Morning News says: Big D Means Democrat Again.

For the first time in decades, straight ticket voting in Dallas County (the county of my birth) leaned against the GOP. The upshot? A whopping 41 of 42 Republican county judges up for reelection this year were tossed out on the curb. As I reported for Mother Jones a few weeks ago, the shift is part of a demographic trend in Texas that could eventually put the entire state back in the hands of Democrats.

But don’t hold your breath. A big reason for the shift in Dallas County: white flight to exurbs such as (ironically-named) Frisco, a road stop on the Metroplex’s march towards Oklahoma. The northward sprawl is giving new meaning to a common joke in Dallas: Why doesn’t Texas fall into the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks.

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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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