January 27, 2010

That Was Then

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The conventional wisdom on Obama sure has changed in a heartbeat, hasn’t it? Compare and contrast:

Yesterday: calm and cool. Today: flat and remote, doesn’t show enough passion.

Yesterday: smart. Today: too cerebral for heartland.

Yesterday: analytical and lawyerly. Today: not connecting with voter anger.

Yesterday: needs to move quickly to take advantage of honeymoon. Today: tried to do too much.

Yesterday: plays the long game. Today: needs to pivot fast or lose his presidency.

Yesterday: policy driven. Today: too detached.

Yesterday: pragmatic. Today: not taking charge of process.

Yesterday: inspirational speaker. Today: uses teleprompter1 too much.

Yesterday: postpartisan. Today: has been crushed by partisanship.

So which was right: yesterday’s conventional wisdom or today’s? Personally, I preferred yesterday’s except for the whole postpartisan thing. The public says they like it, but it was always doomed to failure. Time to move on.

1Sorry, I meant TelePrompTer™. And I have to admit that his reliance on it even in small settings is getting kind of weird.

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We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

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