September 25, 2012

See the New Full-Page “Seriously Ugly and False Anti-Obama Ad”

Tampa Bay Times political writer Adam Smith has flagged this full-page ad from Sunday’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune—a reliably balanced reporter, he calls it a “seriously ugly and false anti-Obama ad”:

Screenshot courtesy of Sarasota Herald-TribuneAccording to Smith, the ad has also run this month in tiny dailies all over Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It was created by the Government Is Not God Political Action Committee, the 18-year-old soft-money vehicle of religious conservative crusader William Murray (who is the son of famed atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, as well as a big supporter of Todd Akin). It’s hard to say exactly what electoral impact the GINGPAC ad will have, especially since Murray himself came out in the primaries as a Santorum-loving Romney-resister:

By the way, Murray—who lists his favorite books as the King James Bible and the Annapolis Book of Seamanship—is not a Texan; he hails from Maryland and the District of Columbia. This is what he sounds like when not wearing a cowboy hat and pandering to Lone Star staters:

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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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