September 10, 2012

15 Percent of Ohio GOPers Say Romney Deserves Credit for Bin Laden Raid

We're pretty sure this is a photo of Mitt Romney planning the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/5338992830/">ISAFmedia</a>/Flickr

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In what some (one guy on Twitter) have called “a stroke of comic genius,” Public Policy Polling decided to ask Ohio Republicans who they thought “deserved more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden: Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. In what some (my colleague Tim Murphy) have called “the greatest thing ever,” a full 15 percent of Ohio Republicans surveyed said Romney deserved more credit than the president. Another 47 percent said they were “unsure.” This led to all sorts of funny quips on Twitter:

This is amusing, but no one should take it particularly seriously. Significant percentages of Americans claim to believe all sorts of crazy things, and it’s possible that a large percentage of the people who told PPP that Romney deserves credit for the bin Laden raid simply wanted to say eff-you to the president.

The poll didn’t offer an option for “the Navy SEALs” or “the troops,” who undoubtedly would have blown out Romney and Obama if they were options. The news in this poll—as much as any one poll can be news—is that it found Obama leading Romney by five percentage points in Ohio. (The full poll results are here.) No Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio. Here’s a reality check on the state of the presidential race: Nate Silver, the New York Times‘ polling guru, now gives the president a nearly 80 percent chance of winning reelection.

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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.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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