July 20, 2009

Dear Senator Lieberman

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Dear Senator Lieberman,

I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, but I need your help. I’m confused. I thought you were supposed to be hawkish on foreign policy and Israel, moderate on social issues, and liberal on economic issues. That seems to be the conventional wisdom. But if you’re so progressive on economic issues, why are you trying to hold up health reform? You must realize that if health care is going to get done, it’s going to have to be this year—2010 is an election year.

The Republicans have been all over television talking about how if they can just delay health care past October, they can “break” President Obama. So why are you signing letters urging the President to “resist timelines”? Just because you think it would be better for things to move slower doesn’t change the political reality. The longer this takes, the less likely it is to happen. You used to be a Democrat: you know, the party that’s been trying to give Americans universal health care since Harry Truman’s presidency. It’s been over sixty years. Haven’t Americans waited long enough? Progressives might disagree with you about Iraq. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t love to see you leading on health care. Do it.

-Nick Baumann

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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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