January 28, 2010

California’s Fresh Prince of Bel Air

<a href="http://prinz-frederic-for-governor.com/joomla-us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=129">Prince Frederic von Anhalt</a>

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It’s a bit early for California’s gubernatorial race to get weird, but this is a promising sign of things to come. For anyone who worries that they’ll miss the Governator’s accent, your candidate is here: Prince Frederic von Anhalt, A.K.A. the Duke of Saxony, A.K.A. Zsa-Zsa Gabor’s ninth husband. And why should Californians vote for a psuedo-royal from Bel Air who claimed—incorrectly—to have fathered Anna Nicole Smith’s baby? As the prince explains on his website, “We’ve had Irish-American, African-American, Amenian-American and Austrian-American Governors and now it’s time for a GERMAN-AMERICAN to lead the state.” California über alles! The prince’s platform includes legalizing pot and Cuban cigars, opening the US-Mexico border, chucking out Prop. 8 (“Throw the Divorce Lawyers a Bone and quiet the Gays”), and “Mandatory Solar Panels on every New Building.” And lots of gratuitous, haphazard Germanic Capitalization of Nouns. Now if we can just convince Gary Coleman to run again…

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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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