We've been hacking away at this newsletter for a little over two years. Everyone's a volunteer and we all have different reasons for working here. One is, quite obviously, for the "fun of it." The opportunity to lampoon politicians and other political folks through this medium with almost no retaliation coming back at us is priceless. Long ago, we made the decision to never run for office. Not just for the reason of the Vine, but more for the realization that, in the immortal words of Detective Harry Callahan in the movie Magnum Force: "A man's got to know his limitations." And, we know ours. So, all you folks that keep sharpening your knives in wait for the Political Vine folks to run for public office (or anything higher than a convention delegate), sorry to burst your bubble.

Another reason we put this out is due to a self-imposed "duty" to communicate certain facts and information that is usually not being provided from any other source.

A third reason is (and, this is not a boast) we know we have a certain skill in researching lots of different subjects within the political arena, and then weaving the information into an enjoyable format for reader consumption. Lots of people think politics is a boring topic. Most of our readers read down to the very last character, regardless of the length of the edition. We believe we have succeeded in tinkering with our formula just enough to produce the right amount of information mixed with humor/sarcasm to make our product an enjoyable experience. At least for the 98% of the people who do not become a target for the Vine.

So, our "decision point" is that we are considering using our newsletter to generate revenue for, perhaps not so we can stop working and retire, but, at a minimum, generate revenue to cover Web hosting expenses and the like. We have the domain name PoliticalVine.com, but we've not gotten around to the point of developing a "real" Website. And, maybe we will get to that down the road. Until then, the only way to "see" this is to subscribe. Which, based on our experience over the past 8 months, averages 3,000 per issue. Figure-in the number of times the Vine gets forwarded on each issue, and we estimate that between 3,000 and 4,500 pairs of eyeballs see every issue.

The revenue we hope to generate will be by taking ads within the text of a Vine. Unlike other e-newsletters we receive, we will not, however, break-up the text of one subject to insert an ad. When this is done to us, we find our eyes skipping the ad entirely and getting down to the text to continue reading before we forget the sentence stream.

We have no idea of the pricing structure yet, so the first few issues will be of an experimental nature. The ads will be real (click the company names to visit their Websites), but there is currently no charge for them. However, the types of ads accepted will be of the type that appeal to what we think is our target audience. Mickie-D's and Hooters are out as ad choices, but quality services and useful products will definitely be examined for potential placement.

Anyway, we hope you do not find the ads too intrusive...and, that some of you might actually find them of interest.