September 21, 2010

Watching Feingold

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Maybe I’m being too complacent about my home state, but I don’t think Carly Fiorina has much of a chance of beating Barbara Boxer in California’s Senate race. She’s just not a good enough candidate. (And this ad about Carly’s yacht is pretty devastating according to my longtime focus group, aka my wife). But TPM reports that in Wisconsin Russ Feingold might be in much more serious trouble:

He’s trailing in the polls against Republican businessman Ron Johnson — the TPM Poll Average gives Johnson a healthy lead of 51.6%-44.8%. In addition, Public Policy Polling (D) will have another survey out today, showing Feingold down by double-digits as a result of a “massive” enthusiasm gap between Republican and Democratic voters.

Thomas Holbrook, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee….explained that as of now, the race still has not heated up — and people still don’t really know Johnson: “Right now people don’t know much about him, other than he’s the guy running against Feingold.” As such, Feingold and his supporters have the task of defining Johnson negatively in the voters’ minds.

“It’s not clear to me that Feingold does negative very well,” said Holbrook. “It’s sort of out of step with his overall approach to politics. I remember over the summer seeing an ad, and I don’t even remember what the substance was other than it was negative, and I just remember thinking it didn’t fit well with Feingold himself.”

Several commenters to this post make the point that much of Johnson’s current lead in the poll average is due to the effect of Rasmussen’s numbers, which are typically five points too favorable toward Republicans. So things might not be as bleak as they look.

Then again, they might. And that would be a tremendous loss. I was pretty annoyed at Feingold for his quixotic decision to support the Republican filibuster of financial reform, but that doesn’t change the fact that he provides a uniquely honest and valuable voice in the Senate. That makes this a bellwether race to keep a close eye on. Do we really want to lose the only person who voted against the PATRIOT Act back in the dark days of 2001?

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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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