October 15, 2006

Abramoff and the White House: More Than Photo Ops

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Just the kind of story that’s going to get buried on a Saturday: GOP bigwig and former White House political director Ken Mehlman pitched in with various pet projects of superlobbyist Jack Abramoff’s. Yes, it turns out that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now works just like your basic Congressional office: Any agenda, no matter how picayune, is worthy of top-level attention, as long as the money is right. Want a State Department official who’s been making trouble for sweatshops fired? Want subsidies for a project the government itself says is unnecessary? Call the White House, and make sure you let them know what you’ve done for hte GOP lately. Not that we didn’t sort of know this; but there’s something in seeing it laid out quite this plainly:

“I was a gateway,” Mehlman said in an interview. “It was my job to talk to political supporters, to hear their requests, and hand them on to policymakers.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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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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