The Diddly Award

The Flightless Eagle Award is awarded to the right-wing congressional candidate least likely to soar. The nominees are…

Illustration: Peter Hoey

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Vernon Robinson (5th District, North Carolina), an African American Republican, is already legendary for his ads, such as the one in which he introduced himself this way: “Jesse Helms is back! And this time he’s black.” One pamphlet read: “Your vote could determine whether VERNON ROBINSON or my opponent — an admitted NUDIST — yep — like nekkid — like no clothes — represents the Republican Party.” Another ad reminded listeners how hard it is for liberals to admit that “black mothers need to stop having eight babies by seven different fathers, stop talking street-talk jive like ‘Yo, dawg, peep my bling-bling.’”

James Hart (8th District, Tennessee) is the GOP nominee who holds that “poverty genes of less ‘favored races’” will soon cause the U.S. to “look like one big Detroit.”

Alan Keyes (U.S. Senate, Illinois), who ran for the Senate in a state he’s never made his home, once railed against Hillary Clinton for doing the same: “I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton’s willingness to go into a state she doesn’t even live in and pretend to represent people there,” he said in 2000. “I certainly wouldn’t imitate it.” As the GOP’s candidate, Keyes quickly endeared himself to Illinois voters by advocating that their right to vote for their senators be revoked — and returned to the state legislature.

Tom Coburn (U.S. Senate, Oklahoma) had previously distinguished his hard-right positions by asserting: “If I wanted to buy a bazooka to use in a very restricted way, to do something, I ought to be able to do that.” This year he combined two hot-button issues into a surefire winner: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life.”

AND THE WINNER IS… Vernon Robinson, who also charged that gay marriage will lead to “civil unions for three men, then four or five, then two transvestites, a pedophile, a lesbian, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate