August 28, 2008

MoJo Video: Meet Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com at the DNC

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Nate Silver invented PECOTA, a system that predicts the future performance of baseball players that’s used by teams and baseball geeks alike. Now he’s turned his attention to political forecasting, and he’s found he’s pretty good at that, too. Silver’s site, FiveThirtyEight.com (named after the number of electors in the electoral college), relies on polls, demographics, and statistical analysis to predict who is going to win the 2008 Presidential election. I sat down with him for a quick chat yesterday at the Democratic National Convention; watch the video here. [Nate’s on the right.]

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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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