August 25, 2015

Republicans Will Survive Their Destruction Derby Primary Just Fine

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I would like to highlight two common claims about presidential primaries that I see a lot:

  • Having lots of candidates and a long race is a big problem. When the Republicans have finished beating each other up this year, the eventual winner will be too exhausted to win in November. All that Hillary Clinton will have to do is roll the tape of her opponent being slagged by fellow Republicans, and she’ll waltz into the White House.
  • Having no competition is a big problem. Democrats would be much better off if Hillary Clinton had some serious challengers who sharpened her campaign skills and took a little bit of the spotlight off her.

As near as I can tell, there is zero evidence for either claim. Off the top of my head, I’d say you can very occasionally make the claim that a primary battle matters—the 1968 Democratic race comes obviously to mind—but most of the time the candidate who emerges at the end seems to be unhurt by either too much or too little competition.

Does anyone know of any backup for either of these claims? I’ve never seen any. Republicans are putting the first one to a kind of destruction test this year, but even so I’ll bet the eventual winner is in pretty normal shape by Labor Day.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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