Pre-Debate Analysis: McCain’s Ayers Quandary

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It’s well known that John McCain has promised to “whip [Obama’s] you-know-what” in tonight’s debate, in part by bringing up William Ayers.

But there are a number of problems with raising Ayers tonight in New York. I’ll let Noam Scheiber explain:

If McCain goes that route, doesn’t that mean he’s mostly wasted the last several days, when he and Palin have substantially toned down their Ayers rhetoric? (Days he can hardly afford to waste, I might add.) It seems strange to pursue one strategy in the days leading up to a debate, then another strategy during the debate–particularly when the strategies are contradictory….

[But] if McCain doesn’t mention Ayers tonight, he’s going to get hammered in the press for making empty threats (cue the erratic meme) and essentially wimping out.

This has been about as haphazard as any media messaging strategy could be. And I’ll add that by letting Obama and his debate prep staff know in advance that he plans to raise the Ayers attack, McCain gave them the opportunity to prepare a response. I suspect it’ll go something like, My opponent wants to continue the old tired politics of guilt by association. I want to talk about how we’re gonna fix this economy.

How does McCain come out a winner here? I just don’t see it.

Update: Check back tonight for a debate live-blog. Here’s an example of how we roll, so you know what to expect.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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