June 4, 2008

John McCain Speaks in New Orleans, Poorly

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McCain was in New Orleans tonight making his historically laughable “I’m not George W. Bush” speech.

He opened with a relatively transparent play for disaffected Hillary Clinton voters. He said: 1) she didn’t get treated with the respect she deserved by the media and the Obama campaign; 2) she is an inspiration to his daughters; 3) he is proud to call her his friend. I wonder if he’ll repeat this line on the campaign trail; even if he does, he’ll never have a microphone as loud as the one he had tonight.

But none of that is going to undo the fact that McCain is a pretty awful public speaker. His voice is basically a monotone, his pauses are unnatural, and the audience applauds awkwardly. And it’s not just his style. Today, his central message was essentially a defensive one — “this is a change election, but there is the right kind of change and the wrong kind of change” — and when that’s the case, you’re in serious trouble, methinks.

McCain attacked Obama repeatedly today — using the standard conservative attacks on liberals. Senator Obama wants to take your money and let the government decide how to run your lives. My approach trusts in the common sense of the American people. After every attack, McCain stuck a forced grin on his face and said, “That’s not change we can believe in.” Applause was, as I’ve mentioned before, awkward.

And before he could finish CNN cut him off to announce that Obama had secured the delegates needed for the Democratic nomination, reinforcing just how much this is Obama’s night.

Update: I should have linked to my April blog post on John McCain’s miserable record on Hurricane Katrina.

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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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