October 1, 2014

This Is the GOP Campaign Ad Everyone Is Laughing About

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On Wednesday, the College Republican National Committee released a slew of nominally “culturally relevant” campaign ads. Unsurprisingly, they are bad and the internet is having a lot of fun mocking them.

Here is the one they made for the gubernatorial race in Florida:

(They also released versions for races in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania.)

The ads—parodies of “Say Yes To The Dress”—are being roundly mocked on social media. Deservedly so! They are objectively awful. To be honest though, if they were produced by Democrats a lot of liberals would be laughing with them instead of at them. And, look, on the one hand, c’est la vie. That’s the way it goes with campaign ads. But on the other hand, it’s probably worth keeping in mind because being aware of your own hypocrisy helps build character.

 

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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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