March 21, 2012

Quote of the Day: Romney Gaffe Demonstrates That Romney is Unbeatable

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From Erik Fehrnstrom, a top aide to Mitt Romney, on whether his guy has tacked too far to the right to beat Obama in November:

Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch — you can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again.

Here’s the interesting thing about this comment. It’s provoked loads of mockery from liberals. It’s provoked a bunch of attacks from the other candidates. But among the conservative commentariat, it’s mostly just been sighs. I haven’t seen much outrage along the lines of “This just goes to show what a fake Romney is.” It’s mostly been disbelief that Fehrnstrom could say something so dumb; wan defenses that he wasn’t really saying anything we didn’t know already; and explanations that obviously Fehrnstrom was talking about campaign mechanics, not issues.

Conclusion: we are finally at the point where nobody on the right really wants to say anything bad about Romney. He’s got the nomination sewn up, and it’s time to start circling the wagons.

In other words: It’s over, Rick. Time to pack it up.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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