Poll: Tea Party Beats Republican Party

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A new Rasmussen poll shows just how much the “Tea Party” movement has taken hold. According to the poll, given the choice between a Democrat, a Republican, and a hypothetical “Tea Party” candidate in their congressional district, 23 percent of Americans say they would vote for the tea partier. Eighteen percent would opt for the Republican, and 36 percent would choose the Democrat. Liberals should resist the temptation to celebrate. The “Tea Party” is not a real political party and most Tea Party voters will settle for voting Republican.

The only way Democrats can capitalize on this will be if Tea Party pressure creates more situations like the one in New York’s twenty-third congressional district earlier this year, where a very conservative independent candidate ended up splitting the GOP-leaning vote with a moderate Republican and allowing the Democrat to win. That seems like it was probably a fluke. In most cases, the more conservative candidate will simply run in the Republican primary and win—and economic conditions in October and November 2010 will largely determine whether or not that candidate wins the general.

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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.

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