Some Evidence on the Reid Question

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On Tuesday, I suggested Markos Moulitsas should spend a few extra bucks next time he surveys Nevada and ask Harry Reid-haters exactly why they hate Reid. A commenter named “kos” (the genuine article?) suggested that Mother Jones cover the cost. Thankfully, neither Kos nor MoJo nor yours truly will have to write a check after all. That’s because on Wednesday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) released the results of its latest Nevada survey, which offers support for the idea that at least some of the opposition to Reid comes from Democrats who think he’s not liberal enough. Here’s the most important data:

Among Independents who have an unfavorable view of Reid, 55% say it’s because he’s not progressive enough while only 40% think he’s too far left. Among Democrats with an unfavorable view, a whopping 92% say he’s not progressive enough.

62% of Democratic voters are not sure Reid should be the Democratic nominee in 2010, or think it should be someone new.

Seventy-two percent of Republicans with an unfavorable view of Reid think he’s too far left, but that’s no surprise. If Reid can hold Democrats and Independents, he’ll win Nevada in a walk. And the data from this survey, at least, suggests that Reid should be moving left—not right, as Chris Cillizza has suggested. It looks like the Las Vegas Sun‘s J. Patrick Coolican (who somehow emailed these survey results to scoop [at] motherjones [dot] com before I got PCCC’s press release) was right.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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