GOPers More Open to Question Time than Obama?

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At the Wednesday White House press briefing, I asked deputy press secretary Bill Burton about the cross-partisan Demand Question Time campaign that has come together to urge President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders to commit to holding regular, frequent, and public Q&A sessions like the one held last Friday in Baltimore. Here’s what happened:

Q. Thanks. As you might know, there’s a coalition of right and left bloggers, politicos, including —

MR. BURTON:  Cable pundits?  (Laughter.)

Q. — people who watch cable TV and people who don’t, including people who used to work in the administration and people who worked on the Obama campaign, who are asking both the President and the congressional Republican leaders in the House and Senate to hold these question sessions, to commit to holding them on a regular basis.  Would the White House do that?

MR. BURTON:  Well, David Axelrod has talked about this a little, and what he had to say was that part of the reason that Friday was so successful with the GOP conference is that it was for the spontaneity that occurred there. And it’s going to be hard to sort of recreate that spontaneity that happened.

Now, the President thinks that there is space for more open dialogue, more — and he’s going to look for more opportunities to do things on camera and have open discussions on important issues. But in terms of a regularly scheduled event, I don’t have anything for you on that.

Now compare that to the Republican response. Politico reports:

House Republicans want a rematch.

Democrats were thrilled with President Barack Obama’s performance at last week’s question-and-answer session with the House GOP, but it’s the Republicans — not the White House — who are embracing a call to make question time a regular part of American political life.

“I think it’d be great,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), the ranking Republican on the budget committee whose exchange with the president over his budget proposal was one of the more substantive parts of Friday’s Q&A in Baltimore.

As for the GOP House leaders, Politico notes:

“We had a good discussion with the president in Baltimore about his policies and what we believe are our better solutions,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner. “Frankly, the president’s acknowledgment that he has read our policy proposals should stop every Democrat — in Congress, at the political committees, and in the White House — from repeating their discredited ‘party of no ideas’ talking point. So we’ll look at this proposal.”

To sum up: White House says, no. GOPers say, maybe. To be continued.

You can sign a petition calling for Question Time here. You can watch me talking about QT on C-SPAN below.

And here’s Republican strategist/blogger Mindy Finn and I discussing Question Time on Hardball.

 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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