Rick Santorum Now the Great Conservative Hope

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Back in January, before the South Carolina primary, I suggested there was still a sliver of hope for Rick Santorum. I probably meant to say that there were still slivers of hope for both Santorum and Gingrich, but my puny liberal brain just couldn’t get its hands around the idea that there was any hope for Gingrich. So by process of elimination, that meant Santorum was the only remaining chance for the Anyone But Romney forces.

Well, guess what? Lots of negative ads and the usual Gingrichian meltdown — it’s nice when people act exactly the way you think they’re going to act, isn’t it? — have, in fact, left Santorum as the last man standing whose last name doesn’t start with R. The RCP poll average below shows Santorum surging after his primary wins last week, and the latest PPP poll shows him substantially ahead of Romney nationally, 38%-23%.

So what happens now that both the national spotlight and Romney’s millions are turned on Santorum like the eye of Sauron? Nothing good, I imagine. Alternatively, maybe he really does have a chance, and Republicans have made up their minds to stage a nostalgic revival of 1964. The mind reels.

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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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