August 12, 2009

UPDATE: Organizing for America’s Health Care Visit Debacle

by flickr user Freedom To Marry used under Creative Commons license

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It seems I’m not the only one irritated this week. So is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who says she’s miffed at Organizing for America after her office was inundated with constituents  looking to chew her ear off on health care reform. This makes her the first Democrat to formally frown on the program.

In case you missed my post on Monday or your SPAM filter blocked OFA’s email, Obama’s netroots machine tapped its Dumbledore’s Army of activists to visit their senators during the August recess to express support for healthcare reform. The website even offered a convenient “appointments” widget, meant to help fence-sitters commit to the trek. Tens of thousands signed up. Unfortunately, some folks (including a few of the ones I sat with on Monday morning) thought that meant they had an actual appointment to see the senator. Which they did not. 

So why can’t the Obama administration coordinate with it’s friends? Is Organizing for America making itself a nuisance? Or is the California senator just a big wet blanket?  

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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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