Another Obama Ad Takes Very Serious Tone

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The Obama campaign has released another long-form ad in which Obama speaks directly to the camera for the entire duration. It’s below. As you probably know, they released a rare two-minute ad a little over a week ago; some said the serious tone was appropriate for the grave economic subject matter covered within, others said it was unwatchably boring. Two observations on the new ad:

(1) The Obama campaign obviously believes that the first ad worked. Their internal polling must show that, at the moment, Americans see Obama as the more steady and presidential of the two candidates. Don’t expect any fireworks from Obama at the debate on Friday.

(2) This is what having $77.5 million on hand will do for you. You can move beyond the standard 30-second format in your advertising.

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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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