April 26, 2011

Sen. Jim DeMint’s Push to Unseat Sherrod Brown

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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)—who raised millions for right-wing candidates in 2010—has found his latest target: fellow Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who’s up for re-election in 2012. In a fundraising solicitation, DeMint slammed Brown for being “the Most Liberal Senator” in Congress and vowed to help defeat him in 2012. DeMint detailed Brown’s sins in an email sent through right-wing website Townhall.com:

He recently made national headlines when he compared those of us who oppose unchecked union power to Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin…?

There is no bigger supporter in the U.S. Senate of big-government spending, bailouts, and debt than Sherrod Brown. 

Thankfully he’s up for re-election next year and freedom-loving Americans across the nation have a chance to end his assault on our liberties. 

Brown, a first-term Senator, certainly isn’t taking his re-election for granted: in the first three months of 2011, he raised $1.3 million and made appearances last week with Vice President Joe Biden back in Ohio. Polling has shown him leading potential Republican opponents by only a small margin.

No one’s entered the race officially as of yet, but at least one prominent possible challenger has emerged in recent days: Ken Blackwell, Ohio’s former secretary of state and a 2006 candidate for governor—a staunch conservative who’s on the board of the National Rifle Association. Ohio voters ushered in conservative Republicans like Gov. John Kasich just last year, and the GOP seems to be betting the same will hold true in 2012.

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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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.

payment methods

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