Obama: It’s Colorado, Stupid

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Colorado is the key to a Barack Obama victory.

At least, that’s what the Obama campaign strategists seem to believe. This morning, the campaign sent out a schedule of Obama’s remaining campaign stops. After Obama finishes visiting with his ill grandmother in Hawaii on Friday, he will return to the trail. First up, there are stops in Nevada. Next he will head to New Mexico. Then his final campaign stops will occur in Colorado.

Notice, there’s nothing on schedule (as of yet) for Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida, the traditional deciders. Instead, Obama is working hard the new swing states, especially Colorado.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign’s attitude toward Colorado is, eh, erratic. The campaign pulled its money out of the state. But after doing that, it decided to send McCain to campaign rallies there. And Sarah Palin has recently campaigned in the state. So what does that mean? Do the McCain strategists believe he can win that state by turning out the base with personal appearances rather than by courting swing voters with expensive teleivsion ads? It’s a theory.

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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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