January 27, 2010

That Was Then

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The conventional wisdom on Obama sure has changed in a heartbeat, hasn’t it? Compare and contrast:

Yesterday: calm and cool. Today: flat and remote, doesn’t show enough passion.

Yesterday: smart. Today: too cerebral for heartland.

Yesterday: analytical and lawyerly. Today: not connecting with voter anger.

Yesterday: needs to move quickly to take advantage of honeymoon. Today: tried to do too much.

Yesterday: plays the long game. Today: needs to pivot fast or lose his presidency.

Yesterday: policy driven. Today: too detached.

Yesterday: pragmatic. Today: not taking charge of process.

Yesterday: inspirational speaker. Today: uses teleprompter1 too much.

Yesterday: postpartisan. Today: has been crushed by partisanship.

So which was right: yesterday’s conventional wisdom or today’s? Personally, I preferred yesterday’s except for the whole postpartisan thing. The public says they like it, but it was always doomed to failure. Time to move on.

1Sorry, I meant TelePrompTer™. And I have to admit that his reliance on it even in small settings is getting kind of weird.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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