September 2, 2008

Might Palin Pull a Harriet Miers?

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So it’s only been a few days that Sarah Palin’s been on the ticket. But for chrissakes, it’s only been a few days that she’s been on the ticket! This much drama, this soon? At this rate, I half-expect Maury Povich to nab her first interview. And I actually felt kinda dirty watching the networks tonight, they went all Inside Edition on us, like CBS interviewing teens on a New York City stoop, asking what they think of Palin’s daughter being a mama (they were teenagers, blunt and unforgiving). With only a Category 1 storm to cover and no Bush/Cheney duo-of-evil to broadcast, the nets needed the drama to fill that gaping news vacuum. But, did they, really?

Weirdly, this confluence of events, the surprise out-of-nowhere pick of Palin, the stall of the convention, Gustav being less than a catastrophe, and Palin’s family drama, all of these factors have come together to magnify the absurdity of a) the VP pick, and b) the saturation of punditry (of which I am a part, I know). It’s like the entire world started to care about one woman four days ago and now her life is laid bare, boom.

Which of course, is your fault, McLame. We care, and we go on and on because there’s a chance she’ll be our president in a matter of months. Of course everyone is on the detail hunt, that’s why candidates are “thoroughly vetted.” The ol’ straight talker has got to know this isn’t going well. So does he back up slowly and flip on the hazards? Does Palin resign a la Miers and take one for the team? Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Mitt, any of you guys game for a do-over?

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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.

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