May 13, 2011

Quote of the Day: Who is Mitt Romney?


From DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Good Morning America today:

What I think is unfortunate about Mitt Romney is he doesn’t even know who he is.

I appreciate the sentiment, but Wasserman Schultz is wrong about this. Mitt Romney knows exactly who he is: he’s a guy who wants to be president at any cost. If he has to pretend not to believe in global warming, then that’s what he’ll do. If he has to pretend to believe that the individual mandate is a sign of impending tyranny, then that’s what he’ll do. If he has to pretend that we can balance the budget with spending cuts alone, then that’s what he’ll do. If has to pretend to hate gay people, love guns, and believe that every blastocyst is a precious human life, then that’s what he’ll do.

Romney is keenly aware that given the state of the modern Republican Party, jettisoning every vestige of self respect is the price of getting a crack at the Oval Office. He decided long ago he was willing to pay that price.

DOES IT FEEL LIKE POLITICS IS AT A BREAKING POINT?

Headshot of Editor in Chief of Mother Jones, Clara Jeffery

It sure feels that way to me, and here at Mother Jones, we’ve been thinking a lot about what journalism needs to do differently, and how we can have the biggest impact.

We kept coming back to one word: corruption. Democracy and the rule of law being undermined by those with wealth and power for their own gain. So we're launching an ambitious Mother Jones Corruption Project to do deep, time-intensive reporting on systemic corruption, and asking the MoJo community to help crowdfund it.

We aim to hire, build a team, and give them the time and space needed to understand how we got here and how we might get out. We want to dig into the forces and decisions that have allowed massive conflicts of interest, influence peddling, and win-at-all-costs politics to flourish.

It's unlike anything we've done, and we have seed funding to get started, but we're looking to raise $500,000 from readers by July when we'll be making key budgeting decisions—and the more resources we have by then, the deeper we can dig. If our plan sounds good to you, please help kickstart it with a tax-deductible donation today.

Thanks for reading—whether or not you can pitch in today, or ever, I'm glad you're with us.

Signed by Clara Jeffery

Clara Jeffery, Editor-in-Chief

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