January 5, 2012

The Return of the Cain

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I suppose I’m lowering both my IQ and the collective IQ of my readership just by mentioning this, but here is Herman Cain’s return to public life:

The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO announced plans to tour the country to raise support for the “9-9-9” plan that was the star of his aborted presidential run, hoping to rally congressional sponsors for his plan to replace the federal Tax Code with a 9 percent corporate tax, 9 percent personal income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.

….“I started a new movement. The biggest comment I got when I ended my candidacy was to keep 9-9-9 alive. That’s what this is about, and I’m going to keep it alive with what I’m calling Cain’s Solutions Revolution,” Cain said.

What’s really going on here? I guess the obvious answer is that Cain is just engaged in the time-honored pursuit of separating fools from their money, but I can’t help but wonder if he actually believes this stuff or not. I suppose it doesn’t matter, really, but surely Cain isn’t so completely divorced from reality that he thinks the Republican Party will ever adopt 9-9-9? Even hardcore conservatives thought it was an idiotic idea.

But I guess he figures he can get a book out of it, and so the clown show continues. Sigh.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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