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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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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