Obama Apparently Has Pact With Devil in Swing States

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The latest results from the Washington Post/ABC News poll are pretty interesting. Not because they tell us anything especially new — Obama is doing well in swing states — but because the magnitude of his lead is so astonishing. I did a bit of quick back-of-the-envelope arithmetic and concluded that Obama and Romney are probably dead tied in all the non-swing states put together. But Obama leads 52-41% in swing states. That’s a difference of 11 points between swing states and non-swing states.

Are Obama’s ads really that much better than Romney’s? Is his early start in the ground game paying off this big? Or what? This sure seems like a surprisingly massive difference.

The madcap pollsters at the Post also continued this year’s big new fad of asking a whole bunch of bizarro questions about the candidates: Who would you rather have as ship’s captain during a storm, who would you rather invite home to dinner, who would you go on an overnight camping trip with, who would you rather have babysit your kids, whose music playlist would you rather listen to, who would you rather see as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars? Poor Mitt did badly on all of them except for the babysitting question.

However, in yet another indication of liberal bias in polling this year, they didn’t ask who you’d rather have do your taxes, or who you’d rather have as a 401(k) investment advisor, or who you’d rather hire to manage your hedge fund. I bet Romney would have done pretty well in those categories.

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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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