McCain on Today’s Economic Events: “The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong”

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Via Steve Benen, John McCain’s take on today’s financial insanity:

Here’s the text version of that quote:

“You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall St. And it is — people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think still — the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult times.”

The Obama campaign, which has started a new push to brand McCain as “out of touch,” will almost certainly seize on the line, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Other folks who think the fundamentals of the economy is still strong include Sean Hannity, who yelled at a guest who was pessimistic about the economy and read a ream of statistics that he claimed proved the country’s financials are in tip-top shape, and Donald Luskin, who took to the Post just this weekend to write an essay titled, “Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line.”

An awful lot of egg is going to find an awful lot of faces this week.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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