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The Left’s Bush Bounce
What liberals lost in the voting booth, they’re winning on the newstand.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, has been fond of making the joke that Bush has been “bad for the nation, but good for The Nation,” since the magazine’s circulation has jumped from 100,000 to 170,000 during the past four years. Postelection, she worried that lefty despondence would put a damper on things. Apparently, she said, “grieving took about an hour.” On November 3, The Nation sold 500 subscriptions through its Website, seven times a typical day’s haul; it sold 2,600 by the end of the week. The mag expects its circ will break 180,000 by the end of the year. Aggressively liberal pubs like The American Prospect, Salon.com, Utne, and Mother Jones report increases as well, and the moderate New Republic has also gotten an influx of new subscribers. Except that, according to publisher Stephanie Sandberg, most responded to an ad campaign on hyperlefty Air America.
—Ben Mathis-Lilley

EDITED BY CARL SWANSON

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Carl Swanson | Kate Pickert | Matt Dobkin | Ben Mathis-Lilley
• Table of Contents: Dec 6, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!