Dems Unleashing Full OFA List in Mass. Senate Race (Finally)

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Democrats will be using the full Organizing for America email list in an attempt to rescue Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley, a party official tells Mother Jones. Democrats hope that Coakley, the Democratic candidate in the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, will benefit from the energy of the activists on the massive email list President Barack Obama assembled during his campaign for the White House. In the wake of the White House’s announcement that Obama himself will campaign for Coakley on Sunday, the move to fire up the full 13-million-person list is just the latest sign that national Democrats are panicked about Republican Scott Brown’s momentum and polling leads. David Corn wrote about OFA—and journalist Ari Melber’s 73-page report on it—yesterday:

So far, Obama has mostly stuck to familiar presidential pathways when it comes to using power, communicating with the public, and interacting with the citizenry and his supporters. (His use of electronic town halls and the like have been mostly gimmicks.) Though he entered the White House with a network unlike any amassed by a predecessor—both larger and more engaged—he has not tried to deploy it to reshape the operating system of Washington.

Republicans all over the country are phonebanking for the Massachusetts race (Democrats say they are, too), and Brown has reportedly been raising a million dollars a day online. Can the OFA list save Coakley? Can anything? The Dems are definitely pulling out all the stops.

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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.

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