October 5, 2010

DC Ticker on ABC News: Burton, Buy; Sessions, Sell

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For some time, I’ve had a mostly daily feature on my Twitter feed called DC Ticker, in which I issue buy or sell orders for various political and policy players. It’s amusing (I hope) shorthand for who’s trending up or down, according to the news of the moment. I keep the assessment non-ideological. Some Twitter followers were irritated recently when I issued a buy order for Karl Rove, but this rating was based on the increasing influence of the billionaire-funded super-PAC he has put together to exploit the Citizens United decision and assist GOP candidates in the 2010 congressional campaigns.

Now, DC Ticker is expanding. ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper is starting a weekly digital show today. It’s called Political Punch, which happens to be the name of his rather good blog. Each edition of the PP show will include a DC Ticker report from me. Part of the fun so far in compiling the DC Ticker has been in not explaining the picks. Often, the reasoning is obvious (if you pay attention to political developments). But not always. Occasionally, if enough people ask, I might offer an explanation. But there’s no guarantee. The producers of Tapper’s new show, though, have requested transparency for DC Ticker. So here’s a brief run-down of the choices and the whys.

* Bill Burton, buy. Lots of chatter of late about White House press secretary Robert Gibbs leaving his post for another White House gig or to head the Democratic National Committee. Burton, the assistant press secretary, is in line to take Gibb’s place at the podium (though there are others presumably in contention).

* Rep. Pete Sessions, sell. He heads the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. With a flurry of articles saying, well, the Democrats just may be able to hold on to the House majority, his stock is slipping.

* John McCain, sell. A New Yorker piece contained a telling nugget: McCain dressing down Sen. Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican, for trying to steal McCain’s “maverick” label. High school, anyone?

* Anthony Kennedy, buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a new Supreme Court Justice named Elena Kagan, and she is a she. But as the court opens its term this week, Kennedy remains the main swinger on this bench.

* Jon Stewart, buy. At the start of this week, nearly 200,000 people had declared on Facebook that they will attend his Rally To Restore Sanity on October 30 in Washington, DC. Whether this event is serious or a stunt, Stewart wins: he’ll get plenty of media attention this month and, best of all, a ratings hike. (For my quasi-serious take on Stewartpalooza, see here.)

You can receive my almost-daily DC Ticker report by following my Twitter feed. (#DCticker is the Twitter hashtag.) Please feel free to argue with my selections—though all decisions of the judges are final. And please feel free to make suggestions for buy or sell orders in the comments below or on Twitter (by replying to @DavidCornDC). And there’s this: DC Ticker is merely an advisory service. It and its author cannot be held liable for any investments made in politicians, policy wonks, or government officials on the basis of the information presented.  

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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.

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