Report: No One Giving Money to Rick Perry Anymore

Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have to start eating off the dollar menu soon.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickperry/3346639291/sizes/z/in/set-72157614992926285/">Rick Perry</a>/Flickr

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If Rick Perry had one thing going for him as a Presidential candidate (well, other than the execution thing), it was his bank account. The Texas Governor, we were told going to the campaign, had access to the deep pocketbooks of Lone Star State donors, folks like homebuilder Bob Perry and businessman James Leininger. He had not one but two Super-PACs to his name, including one, Make Us Great Again (MUGA!), that was helmed by a former chief-of-staff turned lobbyist, Mike Toomey. MUGA expected to raise and spend $55 million to support Perry during the primary alone.

But Perry didn’t actually start off with all that money. It was just supposed to come in once he established his dominance as the Anti-Romney prophesied by the ancients. Except he hasn’t done that, and as the Houston Chronicle reports, the donors have stopped showing up. Literally:

Perry’s loyal backers are running into resistance from Republican donors. One Perry fundraiser, who asked not to be named, said he received 15 RSVPs for a recent event from potential donors saying they might attend. But after a gaffe-marred Perry debate performance, none showed up.

“The debates have taken a toll,” the fundraiser said. “The national numbers have taken a toll. People see the campaign on a negative trajectory.”

Perry is currently peppering the airwaves in Iowa and South Carolina with advertisements, tarring President Obama for his “privileged” upbringing. But unless the money spigot turns on again, he won’t be able to keep that up forever.

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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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