Pivoting to the Center for the General Election Is Easy!

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It’s a truism of American politics that candidates run to the left or right during primaries but then “pivot” toward the center for the general election. And the quality of the pivot is a topic of endless discussion. It has to be done smoothly and delicately. Voters won’t put up with a brazen flip-flop.

Or will they? Here is the Washington Post on Donald Trump’s pivot:

The New York real estate tycoon, who frequently boasted throughout the primary that he was financing his campaign, is setting up a national fundraising operation and taking a hands-off posture toward super PACs.

He is expressing openness to raising the minimum wage, a move he previously opposed, saying on CNN this week, “I mean, you have to have something that you can live on.”

And Trump is backing away from a tax plan he rolled out last fall that would give major cuts to the rich. “I am not necessarily a huge fan of that,” he told CNBC. “I am so much more into the middle class, who have just been absolutely forgotten in our country.”

Trump has been rewriting the rules for the past year, so maybe this rule is going by the wayside as well. It will be especially easy for Trump since (a) he doesn’t have an ideological fan base that cares much about his positions, and (b) the press will just shrug and say it’s Trump being Trump. Can you imagine what would happen if Hillary Clinton tried to pull a stunt like this?

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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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