January 20, 2013

Yup, Ashley Judd Sounds Like She’s Running for Something

Actress Ashley Judd and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)@clairemc/Twitter

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The surest sign yet that Ashley Judd might actually run for Senate? She’s starting to talk like she might actually run for Senate. On Saturday, the actress and activist told guests at the Bluegrass Ball in Washington, DC that she was “certainly taking a close look” at challenging Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2014. She didn’t, however, answer a Politico reporter’s question about gun control legislation—a subject that other red-state Democrats like West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Montana Sen. Max Baucus have also avoided. So on Sunday, I put the question to her again at a brunch reception for EMILY’s List, the organization dedicated to support pro-choice female Democratic candidates.

Judd didn’t take the bait: “I really enjoyed—I was very proud of the Vice President’s role on that,” she said. “I liked the consultation and the full voice of people across the spectrum of opinions and ideology about it. I thought focusing in particular on video game creators was important. And I hope that there will be buy-in.”

Thus concluded the Mother Jones Ashley Judd interview. Of course, the biggest hint that Judd is seriously considering a run might just be how she exited the brunch EMILY’s List brunch—carpooling with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.):

2014 should be fun.

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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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