October 30, 2011

Is This the Weirdest Rick Perry Speech Ever?

Jon Ward flags this video of Texas Governor Rick Perry speaking at an event in New Hampshire on Friday, and politely calls it “unusually expressive.” I will go a few steps further and say it is the strangest Rick Perry video I have ever seen (which is a pretty long list). Just watch:

Have you ever seen anyone so happy to receive a jug of maple syrup? Ward, who was in attendance, says the clip was not fully representative of the speech, but notes that the entire presentation was weird enough to prompt a tea party leader to tell him, “I think Obama would chew him up.” The most recent Des Moines Register survey has the Texas governor polling at just 7 percent in Iowa (tied with Newt Gingrich), a state he led just two months ago. Speeches like this, which look more like an appeal to Alec Baldwin to make another guest appearance on SNL, likely aren’t going to do much to stop his free-fall.

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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?

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