November 5, 2008

Prop 8 Still Not Official, Franken Race Headed for a Recount

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California’s same-sex marriage ban is ahead 52%-48% with 95% of precincts reporting, though the state has yet to call the race. Given the stakes, that’s wise. Count each and every vote before setting a new precedent for the nation. If Prop 8 does end up passing it will be the first time that California’s constitution is amended to take away rights. A dubious distinction.

And it looks like Norm Coleman nosed out Al Franken in Minnesota’s Senate race, with all votes in Coleman ended up with 42% to Franken’s 41.97%. The 571 margin of votes for Coleman sets into motion an automatic recount that could drag on until December.

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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.

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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.

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