September 26, 2010

Jerry Brown’s Stage of Life

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I’m curious. Jerry Brown has been running the ad on the right for the past week or so here in California. It ends with this line:

We’ve got to pull together not as Republicans or as Democrats, but as Californians first. At this stage in my life, I’m prepared to do exactly that.

Question: is this an effective way to blunt criticism that he’s old and kind of tired looking? Would you buy the idea that Brown is now sort of an elder statesman who no longer has a career to worry about and only wants to do what’s best for the state? It actually seems sort of clever and possibly effective to me, but what do I know? Comments?

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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