Tonight’s Debate Wrapup (Sort Of)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I’m sorry, but I just don’t have it in me to try and say something intelligent about tonight’s debate. Generally speaking, it wasn’t quite the train wreck that some of the others have been, but that’s faint praise. And it’s appalling that for the second time in a row, a foreign policy debate had no questions — not one — about Europe. The entire continent is on the verge of imploding, and possibly taking us down with them, and Wolf Blitzer doesn’t care. And at the end, when the candidates got a freebie question to talk about any issue they felt wasn’t getting enough attention, no mention of Europe again. It’s just baffling.

Anyway, here’s my Twitter stream for the night. That’s the best I’ve got for you.

5:08pm Good to see Romney singing along. Looks authentic!

5:25pm I think Santorum just lost the Muslim vote.

5:28pm Newt Gingrich is….AWESOM-O!! ow.ly/7CnWd

5:32pm “Huntsman’s problem….is that he doesn’t seem to hate Democrats.” ow.ly/7Co0n

5:34pm Hey, Perry mentioned India! Progress!

5:56pm And literally. RT @RichLowry: did newt just use candidly and frankly w/n abt 5 words?

6:04pm How much oil does Gingrich think we have in America?

6:04pm Oh, and Lean Six Sigma!

6:10pm Perry seems unaware that budget trigger was originally a Republican proposal.

6:13pm How long are we going to have to wait this time before Europe gets mentioned?

6:41pm This debate is only two hours, right?

6:42pm Why are candidates promoting drones on border instead of blimps? America needs a stronger blimp fleet.

6:43pm Jeez, such a whiner. RT @MaxBoot: No mention yet of Arab Spring, with demonstrations in Egypt, open revolt in Syria, etc.

6:45pm Already spent an hour talking about Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan. But we’re going to “widen” the conversation by going to the Middle East?

6:46pm Surprise final questioner will be George W. Bush! #secretsourcestoldme

6:50pm RT @RichLowry: a no fly zone is not a sanction its an act of war

7:05pm Virtues again from Perry. Is this some kind of dog whistle I don’t understand?

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist 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 need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate