DeMint Slams Murkowski in Fundraising Email

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


Things are getting ugly in the Senate Republican caucus when it comes to the Alaska Senate race. Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced last week that she would seek election as a write-in candidate following her loss in the Republican primary to tea-party candidate Joe Miller. But her Senate colleagues have pushed her out of her leadership position and made it clear she’s no longer welcome. Today, an email signed by her colleague, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, dug the knife in a little deeper.

“Rather than accepting defeat and working to unite Republicans behind Joe Miller, she has decided to put her own personal interests ahead of everything else,” wrote DeMint in a letter to supporters in his role as chairman of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a PAC “dedicated to electing true conservatives to the United States Senate.” He also called Murkowski a “big-tent hypocrite” and a “Republican-in-name-only.”

Not that Murkowski’s been silent on the inter-party warfare. Over the weekend, she said in reference to DeMint, “I don’t think that’s it’s particularly helpful to undercut fellow Republicans.” She also said DeMint “has made people uncomfortable,” and accused him of having “rattled cages.”

DeMint’s response? “This might be a fair criticism if she weren’t the one running a write-in campaign against Republican nominee in her state,” he said. Ouch. His fundraising plea continues:

Principles have never been that important to Murkowski. She supported a massive cap-and-trade energy tax that would permanently destroy millions of jobs in this country. She has waffled on whether she would support repeal of Obama’s health care take over. She is one of the worst abusers of the pay-to-play earmarks system. And she doesn’t support the sanctity of human life. With positions like these, it’s no surprise she’s leaving the party.

If Murkowski pulls off her write-in bid (which is a big if, considering the trouble her own campaign seems to have spelling her name), it would sure make for some awkward party gatherings next year, eh?

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

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

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