August 16, 2011

Barack Obama’s Real Opponent

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I saw a bit of Obama’s speech in Iowa a few minutes ago, and it reminded me of the micro-debate over whether Obama knows how to craft a public narrative. I think the answer is clearly yes: it’s just not the one that his lefty critics want him to craft. Obama was moderately tough sounding today, and he was clearly trying to relate his policy proposals to jobs jobs jobs, but at the same time he’s sticking to his guns on his master narrative. It’s all about Obama being the grown-up in the room and the squabbling kids in Congress needing to put “country ahead of party” for once in their misbegotten lives.

That’s not a popular message among the progressive base, but it’s obvious that Obama doesn’t care. He’s doubling down on this narrative, with jobs added on as the overlay of the moment. Nonetheless, employment is plainly not his main theme even if it permeates everything he says. Persuading the public that he’s a sober, serious guy who’s fit to be president is. He’s running against Teh Crazy, not against Mitt Romney or Rick Perry.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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