March 20, 2008

Day Nine: No Straight Talk from McCain on Parsley’s Call for Destroying Islam

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Still nothing.

It’s been over a week since this site broke the news that John McCain campaigned with (and accepted the endorsement of) a televangelist who has called for eradicating Islam, and McCain has not publicly renounced, rejected, denounced or disavowed the Reverend Rod Parsley, who is an important player in Ohio politics. McCain’s campaign did tell Fox News that McCain does not agree with all of Parsley’s views. But that’s not much of a response to Parsley’s call for a holy war to destroy the “false religion” of Islam. One could argue that Jeremiah Wright never went that far—and look what Barack Obama had to go through (justifiably).

McCain’s campaign press office refuses to respond to a request for comment on this. He is trying to duck and cover. Not much courage there.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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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