Hilarious Poll Numbers Show Republicans Are Screwed

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Tim Grieve over at Salon got his hands on a great poll and mined it for all it’s worth. I can’t really add much to this:

41: Percentage of Americans who, when asked to name a Republican running for president, couldn’t.

Eighty-one percent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center could name at least one Democrat running for president. And if you need one more sign that the Republicans are just a little obsessed with Hillary Clinton, here you go: When asked to name a Democratic candidate, 78 percent of Republicans named Clinton, but only 57 percent of Republicans could name their own front-runner, Rudy Giuliani.

Overall, 62 percent of Americans could volunteer the name of Barack Obama. Twenty-eight percent remembered that John Edwards is running, but no other Democrat cracked the double-digit barrier.

Asked to name any GOP candidates in the race, 45 percent of Americans named Giuliani; 30 percent said Mitt Romney; 27 percent I.D.’d Fred Thompson; and 24 percent mentioned John McCain. Only eight percent of Americans volunteered the name of Mike Huckabee. Seven percent did the same for Ron Paul.

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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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