December 4, 2009

Herding Cats

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A friend emails to recommend this statement of the obvious from First Read:

Was Will Rogers right about the Democratic Party? With multiple reports today (in the NYT and National Journal) about how liberals are upset with Obama’s policies (on Afghanistan and other issues), it makes us wonder if it’s much easier to be a Republican president rather than a Democratic one. Consider: Because there are more self-described conservatives than liberals, GOP presidents are freer to play to their base and not rely as much on the middle to win national elections. In addition, Republican presidents typically don’t face much dissent from GOP members of Congress. Even as the Iraq war became an albatross for Republicans, almost all of them followed George W. Bush off that political cliff in 2006 and 2008. And on issues that Republicans now say they disagreed with Bush — the spending, the deficits, No Child Left Behind — the criticism was barely audible while he was office. By comparison, a Democrat has been in the White House for just 10 months, and the left is freely criticizing Obama over Afghanistan, health care, the economy, judicial nominations, you name it. Many liberals and Democrats would probably pat themselves on the back for this kind of independence. Then again, maybe there’s a reason why Republicans have controlled the White House more times than Democrats have over the past 40 years…

Sometimes it’s worthwhile to repeat the obvious, just in case anyone has forgotten.  Which they seem to do with stunning regularity.  So yes, Virginia, the Republican Party really is different….

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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